Leap Of Lack Of Faith

Conspiracy theories are troublesome, because their very implausibility feeds their believability. Of course it seems unlikely... they're COUNTING on you to think that! So I'm relaying this one with a whole shaker of salt for ya. Don't spill any or it's bad luck.

So a guy named Bruce Ivins died Tuesday night, an apparent suicide. He was at the center of an Justice Department investigation into the mysterious Anthrax attacks that happened just after 9/11. You remember, a few congressmen and the Florida offices of the National Enquirer received envelopes containing weapons-grade Anthrax? Ivins was an Anthrax researcher, according to Glenn Greenwald, "where he was one of the most elite government anthrax scientists on the research team at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease (USAMRIID). "

My left-wing blogosphere pals are running amok with the implications of this - Ivins obviously took a bullet for Dick Cheney to avoid implicating him in the attacks! I don't take the whole thing that far, because we don't know Ivins was the culprit to begin with, and even is he was there's nothing, nowhere, that indicates he needed any help to put Anthrax in an envelope and mail it to people. Along with a note that implied he was a Muslim terrorist.

The scenario I subscribe to is that Ivins acted alone, and the administration hopped on the attacks and rushed to blame them on Saddam Hussein, like they did with the World Trade Center attacks. Still, the only thing that slows down the Cheney-ordered-anthrax-terror scenario is the idea that Cheney has respect for human life and the law. So you can see how one would make the leap. Plus, unlike the WTC conspiracy theory, only two people had to be involved in this for it to work. And one was an employee of the other.

Read the Greenwald piece, because he's pretty evenhanded about it and doesn't draw weird conclusions, unlike the commenters. Just don't get all goofy on me. We have to stay frosty, people.