Bush Blew up the Twin Towers

In a recent episode of South Park, the elementary-school-aged troublemakers spend most of the half-hour figuring out whether the U.S. government planned the attacks of September 11, 2001. As they close in on the answer, a squad of poorly drawn, machine-gun-toting Secret Service agents kidnaps Kyle and Stan, along with a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. All of them are whisked away to the Oval Office, where President Bush confesses to everything.

"We've all worked very hard to keep our involvement in 9/11 a secret, but you just had to keep digging," Bush cackles. Then the president pulls out a handgun. He sticks the muzzle in the conspiracy theorist's mouth and blows his brains out. The cartoon blood splatters on a black shirt with the words "911Truth.org."

Bush then explains that he planted explosives in the base of the World Trade Center towers. The missing planes were diverted to an airport in Pennsylvania. Two military jets filled with explosives flew into the twin towers. Then he blew up the Pentagon with a cruise missile. Bush boasts: "It was only the world's most intricate and flawlessly executed plan ever ... ever."

By the end, the show has mocked everybody involved. But the following day, Web traffic to 911truth.org multiplied by five times, spiking the site's number of views to 58,000 a day. A fact omitted from the South Park episode — and from the Web site itself — is that 911truth.org is run by Janice Matthews, a single mother of six from Kansas City, Missouri. continued