Fox News Tries to Smear Bollyn

 by Christopher Bollyn 

September 25, 2003

When Fox News asked to interview me on Sept. 25 about 9-11, I suspected an ulterior motive. Within minutes the ulterior motive was revealed when Alan Colmes switched the subject to the number of Jews killed in World War 2, and asked me what I believed. Fox News and the controlled media are clearly trying to marginalize independent 9-11 research. 

The Alan Colmes show is produced by Joel Kaufman for Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News radio network and reaches a large listening audience across the United States. Lisa Magalnick Jacknow, an assistant producer, contacted me and said they were interested in evidence that officials of the U.S. government were complicit in the 9-11 attacks. Familiar with the attack-style “journalism” of Fox News and knowing that Rupert Murdoch is an ardent supporter of the “war on terror,” I found it hard to believe that Fox News was seriously looking for evidence of high-level complicity. After all, Fox is said to be the favorite channel at the Bush White House.

Colmes was clearly more interested in labeling me as anti-Semitic than in hearing what I had to say about 9-11. An outraged listener called in to protest Colmes' “bait-and-switch” tactic and blatant attempt to smear me.  Colmes told the caller, “You have an agenda too.” 

Colmes asked what evidence I had that senior officials had prior knowledge of the attacks. I said that the fact that President George W. Bush calmly read a book about a goat to school children in Florida for a half-hour after hearing that a second plane had struck the WorldTradeCenter was suspicious behavior for the chief executive of a nation in the middle of the worst terror attack in history. While Bush read the story about the goat, Vice President Dick Cheney was “in charge” in the president’s emergency control bunker, according to Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta. 

Mineta’s testimony before a congressional investigative panel of what he witnessed in the president’s bunker on 9-11 is essential reading to understanding the allegations of official complicity. 

On May 23, Mineta testified about Cheney’s actions in the bunker. Mineta said he arrived at the Presidential Emergency Operating Center (PEOC) at 9:20 a.m. where he observed the Vice President in charge. 

When I presented Secretary Mineta’s testimony to Colmes he said it was “hearsay”. 

Colmes asked about evidence of prior knowledge, but was not interested in the fact that 11 foreign intelligence agencies warned the responsible U.S. government agencies of an imminent attack prior to 9-11. He was clearly more interested in smearing me as an “anti-Semite.” 

When I countered saying that Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News, had financed and produced a television show called The Lone Gunmen, in which the March 4, 2001 pilot episode depicted the exact scenario of the 9-11 attacks on the WorldTradeCenter, Colmes had nothing to say.