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C2C 911 Roundtable Roundup

6.19.5

After months of hype, four big names in Esoterica merged on Thursday, June 16th, on Coast to Coast AM to discuss 911 and whether or not is was an "inside job." On one side, Peter Lance and Mike Levine. On the other side, Alex Jones and David Ray Griffin. The moderator was the beloved host of Coast to Coast AM, George Noory.

Before we commence with analysis, here it is, a blow-by-blow, hour-by-hour, shot-for-shot breakdown of the Coast to Coast AM 911 Roundtable.


HOUR I

Air Traffic Control tape plays of controllers trying to contact flight United 93.

Noory kicks off the Roundtable by laying out 5 potential scenarios : a> the "standard" 911 version, b> the government had prior knowledge, incompetance allowed 911 to happen, c> the gov't knew the attack was coming and allowed it to happen, d>the gov't ran the whole thing, and e> a body "above gov't" used Al Quaeda to pull of 911.

Peter Lance is introduced first. He says 911 is a combination of the first 3 scenarios listed by Noory. He worked out of NY and "traced the path of 911 back to 1989". He says advocates of theorists who believe in a gov't sponsored 911 fail to "focus on accountability for those who are still in our government."

He says he has a huge amount of respect for David Ray Griffin and Mike Levine, but doesn't really know Alex Jones. You gotta love this quote, "People are always looking for people in the 911 truth community to argue with each other and fight against each other." He wants to stick with the Justice Dept and the FBI because that's what he knows about.

He says we're in great danger, post-911. Calls Iraqi war a "castastrophe" and that it united the "Arab Street".

Noory introduces David Ray Griffin as "Peter Ray Griffin", but manages to correct himself smoothly. What a pro.

David Ray Griffin (DRG) says he focused on "unanswered questions" related to 911 and rattles off a bunch of them.

Noory asks him to go in-depth on the situation surrounding George Bush at the school on 911.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Noory introduces Mike Levine. Levine compliments Griffin's and his book as well as Peter Lance. Mentions predicting 911 on his radio show.

"We all concluded that we were in the hands of the Keystone Cops who, in turn, were run by people who's last interest appeared to be the safety of the American people." He tells a story of how the CIA squashed his attempted herion bust in Tailand and Cambodia during Vietnam.

Predicts nuclear terrorism, saying it is a "matter of when, not if".

Noory introduces Alex Jones. He calls AJ, the "Father of the 911 Truth Movement".

AJ says it is the "most anticipated radio broadcast" he's ever heard of. Says he predicted 911 in July 2001 on his radio show. Says Bin Laden is controlled by a group above the government. Plug 1.

He says 911 was an inside job and that the "official story" is a complete fraud. Talks about Operation Northwoods and Operation Gladio. He quotes PNAC and Brezinski. Calls the "pulling of Building 7" as the "smoking gun of 911". Plug for his new movie (2).

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Noory begins to open up the discussion. He asks everyone to state their name prior to speaking. Good move on Noory's part to avoid voice confusion.

He asks David Ray Griffin why NORAD did not react in time on 911.

DRG goes over the 3 different official reasons given by the government why NORAD failed on 911.

Mike Levine and Alex Jones both try to follow that up at the same time. Noory gives the go-ahead to Levine first, then AJ.

Levine disputes Griffin's take on the Secret Service reaction to 911 that DRG discussed during his introductory monolouge. He says George Bush was frightened and that is scary.

Alex interrupts Levine to say that Dick Cheney was in control in a bunker under the White House. He notes the changing of the laws to give NORAD to control to the Dept. of Defense. Levine tries to respond, but AJ talks over him, noting the drills on 911.

Levine begins to respond, but AJ talks over him again and Noory steps in to reign Alex in some. In the midst of his response, Alex just shouts out, "What about Operation Northwoods, are you aware of that ?" Levine asks for a "name or a document" and AJ responds with Plug 2 for his website.

Peter Lance tries to jump in over Levine, then Alex jumps in to talk about Project Bojinka and the drills on 911.

Peter Lance finally gets into the fray and draws first blood with this quip, "Why don't you just let Alex take over the show ? I mean, Alex is the Rush Limbaugh of the Left. He's a bully. He's gonna just dominate this show." He says the problem with Alex's theories is that it allows the mainstream to label the 911 Truth Seekers as all "kooks".

Levine and Jones try to speak out at the same time and them Lance continues. Noory finally steps in and tells them that they have a long way to go and not run out of gas.

Lance gets the floor again. He says AJ is "like Michael Moore. He puts himself into every frame of the movies he's in. He makes it about himself." You can faintly hear Alex saying "These are personal attacks" at this point while Lance is speaking. Lance plugs his website for Plug 1. He says he "names names".

Says because the gov't was "incompetant and criminally negligent" doesn't mean that Bush and Cheney conspired to pull off 911.

END OF HOUR I


HOUR II

Noory lets Alex respond to Peter Lance. He says he's got an atomic clock and that he actually got the minority of the time in the last hour. Noory says they have lots of time left in the show.

AJ says "You're a sweetheart and I've just been chomping at the bit. I'll first say this, I didn't make any personal attacks, I didn't draw first blood, and I'm not going there. I won't be diverted from the truth."

Says he didn't talk about "conspiracy theories", he talked about PNAC and Northwoods. He says he had to be in his film, because he went to NY to interview people. He cites the Patriot Act and says it is all about taking our freedoms. Says gov't helped fund and found radical terrorists. Says Bin Laden is a CIA assett, based on 100's of news clipping from the 1980's. Plug 3 for his website.

He says he listened to Peter Lance on C2C a while back and that Lance said that there are Iraqis in Oklahoma City.

Lance chimes in saying "How long is he gonna get to speak ? I never said there were Iraqi's in Oklahoma City. I never said that, that's ridiculous. ... So you didn't listen to me."

AJ tries to interrupt to ask where some surveilance tapes are but it is very faint and it sounds like he is faded out.

Lance says because Bin Laden was CIA in the 1980's that he is a CIA asset now. He scoffs at Alex's claim to be the "Father of 911 Truth Movement". Says when AJ says reckless things, he undercuts those trying to find the truth.

Noory tries to move away from this growing rift and Levine steps in to "give the listeners a game plan". He talks about Joe Weber from the FBI being stopped from investigating Al Quaeda fundraisers. He says the latest intelligence is that there will be multiple nuke attacks.

Noory asks why the FBI would stop the investigation.

Levine has a transcript of Weber's statement and encourages people to get it at his website. Plug 1. He wants people to take the transcript to their local media asking for answers.

Noory asks which of the potential scenarios Levine thinks applies to 911. Levine says it is a result of "monstrous blowback". He mentions that the Drug Enforcement Agency is omitted from Homeland Security. Noory asks if the intelligence agencies don't want Bin Laden captured. Levine says someone may have an idiotic reason why they should keep Bin Laden alive and you can't underestimate these people.

Plug 2 for his book. Talks about how it was a NY Times best seller and no one followed up on it. He says they need to put a "fire under Congress" to do something about FBI failure to investigate Al Quada. Says Watergate was a good example of how they kept at a story until action was taken.

Plug 3 for his website. He qualifies it by saying it is "listener sponsored radio". He encourages people to go to his website to find the transcript of Weber's testimony.

Noory asks David Ray Griffin if he is bothered by what has happened since 911. DRG mentions his C-Span coverage. He says he predicted weaponization of space and then it came about. He speculates that 911 may have helped fuel this movement. Plug 1 for his book.

Noory asks Alex to "connect some of the dots after 911". Alex first wants to detail proof that Bin Laden is CIA. He goes on to agree with Michael Levine and says that a nuclear attack will result in more engineering of society. Says America will be turned into a total police state.

Alex says the terrorists are the perfect shadowy organization to wage a long term fabricated war. Noory asks if Alex thinks Al Quada exists. He says they exist but they were not involved in 911.

Peter Lance tries to jump in, but we're at the commercial break.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Noory asks Alex Jones what hit the towers on 911. AJ plugs his new movie and his website (Plug 4). He says the official story "from end to end, is a complete fraud."

He runs down a bunch of evidence about people being blocked by the FBI in investigating Al Quada. He sneaks a website plug in here (Plug 5).

He says the people named as hijackers on 911 were financed by the CIA and FBI. He mentions a bunch of anecdotal stuff about the hijackers and their suspicious doings. He notes actor James Woods run-in with the hijackers. He mentions the drills on 911 again and that Dick Cheney was "in control of the drills from the bunker under the White House."

Noory asks if they just willingly committed suicide on 911 then. AJ says they thought they were part of a drill and that the planes were remote controlled.

Noory goes to Peter Lance first for a response. Noory, you devious bastard. Lance starts in with this statement, "First of all, you let this guy run on and on and on and he says things like 'we know these guys were trained at a base in Pensacola. That is absolutely absurd." He says that "underestimates the affectiveness of Al Quaeda". He says that Bin Laden put a cell in NYC in 1989. He says the FBI failed to stop the 1993 WTC bombing. He points out numerous instances where the FBI messed up.

He says AJ is "totally wrong" about the terrorists living with an FBI informant in San Fransisco. Book plug, Plug 2. He wants to lay out his scenario. He first nails Alex by asking "how do we get rid of the shadow government. Even if we impeach Bush and Cheney, how do we get rid of the Shadow Government." He did a little funny voice for "Shadow Government" there, mocking the concept.

Noory says he doesn't expect everyone to agree with each other.

Lance plugs his website (Plug 3). He ties the original WTC bombing to 911. He says a guy named "Ali Muhammed the enigma and the black hole of the entire 911 story." He says Muhammed may work for the CIA and can be found in a number of different terror events.

He says the entire thing boils down to the FBI and CIA trying to cover their butts. He points out the culpability of Jamie Garelik, who let a terrorist be released by the FBI.

He says the scenario is that the US government so catastrophically failed and the Bush administration took advantage of the intelligence failures. He says there is a difference in criminal negligence and malice. "I believe many of the things Alex and David Ray say are true. My way of getting there is different. The thing that troubles me is when you pull it all together and mix it all together in this big stew of 'shadow government', nothing will ever change. Because we'll never be able to prove that."

He encourages someone to indict Jamie Garelick. Noory says it's dramatic that everyone disagrees on some of the concepts, they all agree that there is something "very very wrong here."

Mike Levine jumps in to talk about a document where the CIA brags about "converting intelligence failures into successes". He mentions the FBI firing Ahmed Salem, the informant who was a part of the WTC bombing in 1993. They play the tape of Ahmed Salem talking with the FBI agent.

Peter Lance says the tape may indicate that the FBI had another informant involved and that there may have been prior knowledge.

Noory asks David Ray Griffin if he concurs and DRG kinda laughs and says he wants to use his time to talk about "the evidence".

Noory interupts him to just go to the break at the top of the hour.

END OF HOUR II


HOUR III

Noory asks David Ray Griffin for some of his perspective. DRG says each theory needs to be able to cover all the details. He focuses on the infamous Building 7. He goes over numerous aspects of the problems with the Building 7 Story. He says the odds of the 3 buildings all collasping that way are "null".

Noory says he has a friend in St. Louis who said if the WTC fell because of fire, it should have fallen sideways, not straight down.

DRG says the fire wasn't nearly close to hot enough to melt steel.

Noory says that Building 7 would have had to have been wired way before 911 if it was imploded. DRG says "That's right and, of course, this was Silverstein's building, so there's no big mystery as to how that might have occurred." Ouch, bad answer. No citing of the Silverstein interview.

Noory goes to Alex to discuss Building 7. AJ calls it the smoking gun of 911. He notes the Silverstein admission of "pulling it." He notes the people standing in the holes of the buildings when there was supposed to be melting steel. He says he's talked to firefighters claiming that bombs were going off in the WTC.

Noory asks about seismic evidence. AJ says "yes, but that can be arguable." He goes on to talk about the Madrid fire earlier in 2005 where there was no collapse. Plug for his website (6). He directs people there for more info on Building 7.

Somehow he gets into the Odigo Instant Messenger story. AJ mentions the loud speaker telling people that everything was fine in the WTC.

AJ starts talking about Ahmed Salem, who was discussed earlier in the Roundtable. He gives his slant on how the story unfolded, saying the FBI didn't slip up, they paid Salem to shut up. He starts going into slips in the 1993 WTC story. "It's the same story, George , every time. It isn't the FBI are a bunch of idiots !"

He starts talking about the Paul O'Neil story. He asks how the tape played earlier showed that the FBI were idiots and suggests that it showed they were in on it.

Noory, who by now knows the score of the game I'm sure, goes to ... Peter Lance to rebut Alex.

He starts out with, "This is a classic example of where Alex takes pieces of the evidence and lumps it all together." He says that he agrees that Building 7 was pulled. He mentions a guy named Sucru Dahl (sp.). He says he was around Building 7 and was wearing a stolen fire fighter uniform.

Lance suggests that since Building 7 contained the New York CIA HQ, Secret Service HQ, and numerous black ops departments. Lance says that he believes the building was wired previously for an implosion in the event of the a compromise of the intergrity of the black ops stuff inside.

Noory asks when they'd put the wiring in.

Lance says he doesn't know how long it would take.

Noory says he has a friend who said it would take weeks.

Lance then suggests that perhaps the building was pre-wired to protect secret information.

He then moves on to discuss how the WTC towers came down. First he calls AJ's theory "absolutely ridiculous". He then details construction codes regarding protection of steel for buildings, says the weight of the water and other stuff could pancake the buildings. He says the towers had less asbestos protection than what was the standard.

Noory asks why the 911 Commission didn't come up with a reason for the Building 7 collapse.

Lance says the 911 Commission's goal was to not find any culpability.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Noory moves the topic over to Iraq and asks Peter Lance if there was intent to lie to the American people over why the US went into Iraq, is it criminal ?

Lance says he think it is and that he think it is an impeachable offense. He brings up the Haliburton deal that was announced earlier in the day. He says if there was one courageous prosecutor in the US, they could crack the 911 investigation.

Noory asks Mike Levine if that is possible. Levine says it is only if the people act. He plugs his site again, (4), and wants people to get the transcript of the FBI agent he talked about earlier.

Levine wants to talk about Building 7 as the smoking gun. He disputes this. He disputes DRG's statement that there is "no mystery" as to how the bombs got put into Building 7. Levine says there was tight security at the WTC. He thinks with all the beauracratic folks in Building 7, you'd have a witness to something strange.

He also disputes that Paul O'Neil said that the FBI was in cahoots with Bin Laden and suggests that instead he was saying that they were doing an awful job and it was going to happen.

He says the probability of someone pre-wiring the buildings is next to null. He calls it counter-intuitive.

Noory asks Alex Jones if the Congress is really considering eliminating the 22nd Amendment.

AJ plugs his site (Plug 7) to find out information on that. He wants to respond to Levine's points on Building 7. He says Larry Silverstein will not comment on what he said on PBS.

He mentions the Zogby Poll. He mentions the CNN poll. Plugs his site (#8) to see a screen shot of the CNN poll.

Noory asks how AJ feels that everyone agrees that something bizarre is going on.

AJ says it is because the official story is a lie. He plugs his movie and site (#9) and says he's giving out a free fact sheet and gives out a number. He turns it into a long plug. Asks people to disprove what he says.

He gets wild with this one, "George, I wanna be honest. I got my passports ready, I'm lookin at New Zealand. My family is ready to evacuate the minute they detonate their nukes to bring in total martial law or even before hand. I'm gonna go down with the ship. I'm gonna stay here like my forefathers in 1776 or my forefathers that died at the Alamo. My family raised Colonel Travis's son. I'm gonna go down with the ship. My family is preparing for evacuation !"

Noory doesn't seem to know how to respond to that. He asks what happens to the control of the US in the event of a nuclear attack or something similar.

Levine goes back to that radio broadcast he was talking about earlier in the episode. He says they predicted the "complete loss of our Constitution."

Noory busts out this gem, "I'm concerned. Scared as an American, not as a person. Ya know, quite frankly not much scares me." (This comes from the guy scared of clowns)

Levine says he's scared that it's likely that nukes will go off and that the experts say "it's not if but when". He thinks America can turn the tide and that the people need a "specific job to make that happen."

Noory says it is his obligation to get the word out. He doesn't like the 22nd Amendment change.

Levine says he agrees with Alex, but gives him some constructive criticism with an oustanding boxing analogy about "opening a cut". He says Alex's kind of theories are "not gonna open a cut". Pushes getting the Weber story out there again.

He slips in the term "Bull shoot". Levine, you cad. Website Plug #6. "Go to war. Let's open a cut, folks."

Peter Lance tosses a plug in as well. (Plug 4). He says it is irresponsible to underestimate Al Quaeda and call them a rag tag bunch. He says it is absurd and irresponsible. He emphasizes that the problem is government incompetance and attempts to cover their mistakes. "If you get an indictment against one of these people, that's the ultimate cut. That's when blood will be drawn and we begin to get to the bottom of what happened. If we keep lookin for shadow governments. If we keep saying it was 'those people out there', 'them', ya know. We're never gonna get anywhere. It's disinformation and it doesn't serve us."

Noory turns to David Ray who wants to talk about the 911 Commission. Noory decides to go for one more hour for phone calls.

DRG plugs his book. He goes back to the collapse of the towers. He says the 911 Commission left out structure details of the towers.

Noory turns it over to Alex to wrap the 3rd hour of the Roundtable.

He agrees with DRG and points out that the commission didn't even discuss Building 7. He goes into a huge rant to close it out. Somewhere in there he worked in the term "Hechen slaves". AJ at his most passionate. A snippet : "Bottom line, your guts know something's wrong. It's over for us unless we expose who is behind September 11th."

END OF HOUR III


HOUR IV

Noory thanks the panel. David Ray Griffin opts out of the additional, last minute 4th hour of the panel.

Noory asks Peter Lance about the Downing Street Memo. Lance doesn't think the media will follow up on it.

Noory asks Alex's opinion. He's suspect of the memo story. He wants to discuss PNAC, where they say Iraq is not a threat. He talks about the Niger Uranium story and Rumsfeld's denial of the WMD story.

Alex plugs his new film and it's special website (Plug #10) which sounds pretty cool. He wants people to look up "Shadow government" and they'll find the Washington Post article about it. He mentions the fake newscasts. He says international interests are "playing us like a marionette."

Caller #1 wants to know the "ultimate movitation behind all this".

Levine quotes from the film "Blowback", about the Mujahadeen, "Put the guns in the hands of the shooter, and let God sort it out." He says stupid decisions made by intelligence agencies is behind all of this. He points out conflicts between the War on Terror and the War on Drugs.

Peter Lance says Eisenhower was right about the military industrial complex and points out that GE is a media conglomerate as well as makes weapons. He agrees with Alex that the US needed a new enemy after Russia fell. He says that does not mean that the enemy is not "lethal and competant". He says he deals in "facts only".

Bit of grandstanding here, "On my website, I deal in facts only, okay. On my website, I have names. I name the federal people I believe are culpable. I'd like to ask Alex, who the shadow government members are. Ya know, gimme the names of the shadow government members so that we can go after them. So we can accheive something tonight, othter than just--"

Noory cuts him off to explain that he specifically asked Alex not to give "specific names" and that "you can blame me for that, Peter."

Lance says that Alex doesn't have the facts or else he'd put them on his website.

AJ is trying to say something, but Lance is on fire here, ranting.

He points out a mistake that Alex Jones made regarding Ahmed Salem. He essentially retells the Salem story from his point of view and blames bungling, not complicity.

He starts talking about a "Luxor Massacre" when Alex tries to say something. Lance won't stop, Noory stops Alex briefly to let Lance go into this :

"I'm sick and tired of hearing about how these rag tag group of Islamics are innocent and they're all being manipulated by the 'puppet masters' Its sickening to me, because I've been in the building. I went into Memorial Park. I looked at those eight refrigerated trucks with the fourteen thousand body parts from 911. I was a friend of Ronnie Booker (sp.) who died on the 78th floor of the South Tower with a hose in his hand that day. And I'm sick and tired of listening to these people talk about Shadow Governments when nothing gets done. I think it's the height of disinformation. "

Wow. That was powerful. A brief moment of silence where no one know what to say and then Alex asks if he can respond and Noory, who sounds totally blown away, lets him. Lance lets out a "I hope you will", that's barely caught, but it's there.

AJ starts out with "Hold your horses, for just a second, Mr.Lance" and then tries to get him to bet $50,000 that literally hundreds of newspapers and media outlets admitted that the shadow government exists. "You're denying that exists ?"

All hell breaks loose at this point with both talking at the same time. A transcript doesn't do it justice, but here is close to what went down, but the voices were over each other.

Lance : What are you --

AJ : Ah, hold on, you had three minutes, let me just continue.

Lance : You're not making yourself clear.

AJ : I'm gonna continue. Hold on just a second. Hold on a minute. Hold on.

Lance : You want to bet $50,000 dollars and you're not making yourself clear.

AJ : Hold on a minute. Hold on.

Lance : (inaudible), I'm sure the word "shadow government" --

AJ : Hold on. Sir, you're taking over. George, can I --

Noory finally steps in after quite a while to put a stop to the fight.

Alex starts in now on how he has the New York Times and Chicago Tribune where they say the FBI cooked the bombs. He says he put them in his films (Plug 11) and before he can get to his next point, Lance interrupts him.

Alex : The newspaper --

Lance : No, no, no.

Alex : Let me finish.

Lance : Stop right there. Wait.

Alex : The newspaper clippings --

Lance : Stop right there.

AJ : -- are in my films

Lance : I'm warning you one more time, stop right there.

AJ : Stop right there ? You're --

Noory steps in again to let Peter Lance speak.

Lance says AJ is talking about how the New York Times got ahold of "bootleg tapes" that people claimed was definitive proof of FBI planting the bomb. "He's wrong. He doesn't even know what he's talking about and that's what bothers me."

AJ : Earlier you said that they just put bombs in Building 7 for national security. What type of cockamamey ... You talk about slander and libel. I can back up everything I'm saying and I don't appreciate you throwing terms around like that. Larry Silverstein --

Lance interrupts here and Noory steps in again with this chilling warning, "Guys, answer questions from the listeners or I'll just do it myself." Ouch, The Noor busts out his fatherly instict.

Alex replies to George with this humorous retort, "He's the one attacking me, George."

Lance comes back with "I'm one attacking you because of what you have done with this shadow government and absurd --

AJ : There you go again.

Lance : (inaudible) incompetant.

AJ : Fine, I won't defend myself. Just go ahead and knock yourself out.

Lance : You're taking the eye of the American people off the proper ball. You're like the ultimate --

AJ : No, I'm not.

Lance : --disinformation specialist.

Noory finally steps in once again ! He is really sounding like an annoyed dad here, "Okay, let's go ! Let's go ! Enough ! Enough ! Enough ! " He even says "Alex" and it sounds like he is warning a little kid. Classic. While he was doing that, both Lance and Alex were talkig and it was a total mishmash.

Caller #2 :

Says we need a strategy globally to fight a global government and suggests a civil protest.

He also goes on an awful, awful story about a newsclip of a fireman blocking traffic. Noory is totally confused by this, as am I. This guy is rambling hardcore and then suggests that someone could have wired the WTC when it was down after 1993.

Noory says the terrorists always wanted to take down the tower. He sorta blows off the caller and rightfully so.

Noory asks why "they didn't see the signs in '93."

Lance gives an explanation but can't finish as Alex jumps in and asks what the terrorists motives are.

Noory says that that could be folks who are benefitting from the event afterwards and then Alex goes into answering what the motives of those behind 911 would be.

He says elites set up a crisis and use it to control their population. He brings up Lance disputing his point of the Gulf of Tonkin. Lance, at this point interrupts him, and they begin to fight over that when the most hilarious moment in Coast history may have occured :

(17 minutes, 26 seconds in Hour 4 of the RT)

Alex : "Well how is that a conspiracy then ! "

Noory : "Alex ! Don't yell, you're gonna break my earphones."

Alex : "I'm sorry. "

Lance tries to dispute Alex's discussion of the "199 Memo".

They're going back and forth now and it's getting really ugly. Alex won't let Lance go on with his dispute.

They're sorta going back and forth finishing each other's points, trying to one up each other.

Noory goes to the final commercial break.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Caller #3 :

He compliments George and tells Alex he's doing a great job.

Alex interrupts the caller's point about the rubble to say that during the commercial, he looked up "shadow goverment" on Google. He starts reading the article.

Lance jumps in to dispute Alex's interpretation of that article, with an "Oh, you're talking about that ?! "

The caller tries to interrupt Lance now.

Alex : I didn't mean to get it going again.

Lance : You're saying that is what was behind 911, give me a break.

Alex : No, you just said there was no "shadow government"

Caller : Peter, just a sec, you guys.

Lance : I've been doing this night and day since 911 --

Caller : Iran Contra !

I've no clue where that came from, but it was awesome and hiliarious. Noory tries to step in here.

Lance : When you have a guy on like this on talking about a shadow government --

AJ : See, I'm not the one going mad dog --

Noory : Alex ! Quiet !

Caller : Can I just say something ? Peter, do you remember the Kennedy Assassination ? Iran Contr--

Lance : Do I remember it ? I covered it for Nightline. I did a 20 minute piece on the 20th anniversary of it. Okay ? I've covered 3000 investigative stories in my career. Okay ? I've never been sued and no one's ever won a libel case against me.

AJ : Did you see that ABC news story on Northwoods, Peter ?

Noory has had enough here. "All three of you are, I think, beginning to suffer from fatigue, you've been on with me all night. I'm gonna let you all go. Thank you for being a part of this panel. I'm gonna take the Open Lines calls, because you're shouting at each other. "

Hilariously, Noory gets interrupted a few times by Alex while he is thanking Lance for appearing on the show. Even Alex laughs at that one.

Lance asks for one more minute to have a final say, "with all due respect". He says lumping in the news story about a "shadow government" and using it to say the Bush administration pulled off 911 is incorrect. He says Alex is "doing a disservice to our country with this kind of rhetoric."

Mike Levine who we barely heard from all night. He just says "thanks". It was pretty funny. I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall while Levine was listening to the wildness that preceded this.

Alex says goodbye. He says he wasn't trying to argue with Peter.

Noory goes right to Caller #4, with this gem, "First Time Caller line, welcome to the show, you've got me !"

Caller 4 says Alex is "the only one here saying anything coherent about 911". He rants some about Operation Northwoods. A little discussion of the coup at Popular Mechanics prior to the 911 article they published. Some "fake left" bashing. Caller draws the obvious parallel between Operation Northwoods and PNAC.

Noory thinks the "shadow group" worked with and hired the terrorists.

Caller says he was "absolutely disgusted with Peter Lance". Caller is rambling now, but doling out some good stuff about the "fake left" being funded by Rockefeller and Ford Foundation.

Caller #5 says he's sorry he didn't get a chance to talk to Alex and Peter. Noory says they'll be back, "but probably seperately."

Caller wants to "find a common language" for Peter and Alex. He says the US is so isolated from the world and that we have no idea of geopolitics.

Noory disagrees with the caller who says there is no hope for mankind. Noory points out that Congress made changes in the Patriot Act. He says it is a sign of good things coming.

Caller there may be no way to back out of the "human conspiracies since the dawn of mankind".

Noory rolls out a pat answer and shifts to ...

Caller #6 who asks "why are we so afraid of conspiracies ? "

Noory says some people just don't believe in them. He says it was remarkable that despite the panelists disagreeing vehemently, the all agreed that "whatever is going on is not what we've been told."

Noory brings up that frog cooking story that gets brought up a lot on Coast.

Caller #7 says if the government was so controlling, then they would shut down Alex Jones's website. He says that's why a conspiratorialist can never be refuted, he says it boils down to fear and negativism.

Caller #8 complains that his local radio station pre-empted him, which Noory points out that the 5th hour is ultra rare and doesn't often get picked up. Caller asks what stood out most to Noory tonight that would encourage a sequel.

Noory says it was that the panelists "agreed to disagree". Huh ? I didn't get that impression at all.

Caller #9 says Alex has a good view on the situation at hand, but he gets too excited and it takes away from his message. Caller points to the Jekyll Island story as the beginning of the problem.

Noory kinda cuts him off, because we are out of time and. He gives a Jerry Springer-esque "Final Thought", but the MP3 cuts out there and I miss the gist of it.

END OF SHOW


Analysis

There you have it. I've listened to the episode 3 times already and will probably listen another 3 times by the end of the year. Outstanding show and one of the strangest episodes of the year.

I've heard from some that Alex Jones "ruined the Roundtable", which is surprising, because I am of the opinion that Peter Lane was worse than Alex. My reasonsing is that he just could not mask his contempt for Alex and conspiracy theories, in general, and often let it boil over into petty comments. Once you start baiting Alex with insults and petty attacks, it's no surprise that he fires back hard and fast. I'm not a huge fan of the "he started it" argument, but in this case the shoe fits with Lance more than Alex. Particularly in that last hour, Lance was over-the-top and AJ was merely trying to respond more often than not. I didn't come out of the episode liking Alex Jones more, but I certainly came out of it liking Peter Lance less.

Of all the participants, I'd say Alex Jones had the best "big picture" analysis. Peter Lance had a tad too rigid a methodology when it came to 911 and wasn't able to look at it from AJ's point of view. Levine seemed like he has "hip to the scene" more than he let on and was stifled by all the fighting so we never really knew for sure. David Ray Griffin said the very least, so it is hard to guage where he stood on the "big picture", but it's safe to say he falls in line with Alex, but differs on some minor and major points.

Best Roundtable ever ? Perhaps. Certainly second behind only the original Roundtable. This episode displaced the UFO Roundtable as the second best Roundtable by a fair margin, based on the humorous moments involved and the insane fighting going on between Alex and Lance. Not much in the way of good information put out there, but an excellent, hardcore discussion between two people steadfast in their opinions. Take the Smokey Crabtree v. Loren Coleman feud from Bigfoot Roundtable and multiply it by 10 and you get the level of conflict in this episode.

Under the circumstances, Noory performed admirably. His decision to end the Roundtable early cemented the historic status of the episode, which may go down as the most controversial episode of C2C for quite some time. That final hour was "must hear" for anyone even on the peripheral of the 911 movement. Noory did his best under very trying circumstances.

Another tough aspect, much like many of the Roundtables, was that the topic kept getting moved to different stuff. First it was 911 in general, then post-911, then Building 7 and how the WTC came down, and a few other topics. 911 is such a big topic that it is hard to narrow in on it, but this RT did a good job of hitting some of the bigger stuff.

Plug count : 11 for Alex Jones, Mike Levine had 6, Peter Lance had 4, and David Ray Griffin had 2. It's not an exact science, as I only counted plugs that were outright plugs. If someone plugged something saying it 3 times, it counted only once. That said, Alex did have a lot more plugs than the other guests, but he pushes his websites are the proverbial "mothership" for his entire empire of films, books, and websites. Mike Levine's plugs were more a part of trying to get people to get the transcript of the FBI agent who was squashed by the FBI.

Which leads me to some downsides of the episode. First of all, on a roundtable like this four people are too many. In retrospect, a debate between Lance and Jones would have been best. At this point, though, I don't expect that to happen at any time in the future. Don't get me wrong, both Mike Levine and David Ray Griffin were stellar, but both were overshadowed by the feuding duo of AJ and Lance. Since DRG barely said much, I can't say too much about what he did say. However, I will throw huge kudos to Mike Levine, who seemed to be the most grounded and realistic of all four guests. He deserves a follow up appearance based on this breakout performance and he may have been "made" by his appearance on this episode.

Levine and Lance did, however, bring up one big point that is a valid criticism of Alex Jones and one he should take to heart. The main problem with Alex's work is that he leaves the average person feeling helpless. Yes, he does say people are waking up, but he rarely gives them a mission. Say what you want about Richard C. Hoagland, but he often drives the C2C audience to actually do something, unlike Alex who seems to just deliver the bad news. Levine captured it best with his analogy of "opening up a cut". Alex needs to mobilize his forces better. The idea that we need a "game plan" may have been the shining light coming out of the episode as it is a revelation that has been needed in many areas of esoterica for a long time, not just the 911 Truth Movement. Whether it takes hold and grows from here or falls to the wayside in favor of more petty fighting, we can't be sure of. If the level of dispute within the 911 Truth Movement is as bad as this episode suggests, I'd go with the latter.


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