I just submitted this review to Amazon. I'd like to submit it here; I'm not sure if there is a deliberate attempt to censor some damning reviews on Amazon, or just technical SNAFUs, but the last time I submitted a review there it never got published. It was a one-star review for "United 93," in which I accused the movie of being propaganda meant to reassure those who still believed the official story, and how NORAD has repeatedly changed its story, et cetera. Anyway, hopefully this review will show up there - and here!

Until reading DRG's latest book, I was not previously aware of the multiple stories put out by the Florida classroom teacher, Sandra Kay Daniels.

EDIT: My review is up on Amazon now. I guess I got past the neo-con censors this time. :D

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As is announced with the promotion of this book, 9/11 Contradictions does not delve into possible alternative scenarios with respect to 9/11. It deals purely with internal contradictions within the official account of 9/11. This is already a quintessentially important point. Many people think, in simple black and white terms, of "official story" versus "conspiracy theories." This very thinking numbs the average mind into believing, if having not done the research, that there is "one" official story versus the "many" conspiracy theories. This in of itself is a fallacy, because though there is indeed one official story in the generic sense ("19 Muslim extremists attacked us because they hate our freedoms"), this story comes apart at the seams because the official accounts and testimonies contradict each other (and sometimes themselves) in so many ways. As this text deals only with internal contradictions within the official story, congress and the press can not be excused for not asking these questions out of fear of being tarnished with the "conspiracy theorist" tag in the pejorative sense of the term.

When a child lies to avoid getting in trouble, he often has to change his story in order to cover for himself. This is often because he didn't see a logistical problem with the first lie. Sometimes, the child doesn't even realize he's not keeping his story straight until the adult points out the inconsistencies in the story, at which time the child thinks (or says aloud) "Uhhh-ohh. I didn't think of that..."

With the 9/11 official account, the sources who endorse the official narrative have changed their story time and again. Perhaps they are confident that these inconsistencies will be erased down history's memory hole, but they are wrong; the internet is the greatest invention since the printing press when it comes to the exchange and rapid flow of information. For example, when Bush was notified of the second plane strike, we all know that he stayed in the classroom for at least 7 minutes and at the school for another half hour; however, on the one-year anniversary of 9/11, the White House issued a revisionist account, according to which Bush got up and left the room only seconds later. This revisionist account was clearly an attempt to squash uncomfortable questions about why the Secret Service did not whisk the President away, as indeed was the case with Dick Cheney, who was in the White House. The hard question, which journalists should be asking, is why the head of Bush's Secret Service did not whisk Bush away unless he somehow know that the Florida school was not a target. Perhaps in putting out their revisionist account about the Florida classroom, the White House never anticipated someone like Michael Moore to break through into the mainstream and make Bush's true behavior widely known.

Some information I was not previously aware of involves multiple changes of story by the Florida classroom teacher, Sandra Kay Daniels. Clearly she knew the truth, but in conjunction with the White House's 2002 revisionist account of Bush's behavior, Mrs. Daniels also supported the story that the President left almost immediately. Even more interestingly suspicious, she presented two different accounts, within two days, to support this revisionist history. According to an LA Times story on the one-year anniversary, Mrs. Daniels said: "I knew something was up when President Bush didn't pick the book up and participate in the lesson... He said, 'Mrs. Daniels, I have to leave now. I am going to leave Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan to do the speech for me.' Looking at his face, you knew something was wrong. He shook my hand and left." However, the next day, a NY Times article told a very different story, based on a 9/11/02 interview with Mrs. Daniels. In this account, it was a Secret Service agent, not Andy Card, who informed Bush of the second strike, and this agent said "Where can we get to a television?" Mrs. Daniels then reportedly said: "The President bolted right out of here and told me, 'Take over.' I knew something serious had happened, and then a short while later he came back and said, 'What we thought was an airline accident turned out to be a terrorist hijack.'" Mrs. Daniels even elaborated on the suddenness of Bush's disappearance: "My kids were so happy that morning - imagine the President sitting there shooting the breeze, and then poof, suddenly, he's gone." So even in support of Bush leaving the room quickly, Mrs. Daniels gives two contrasting scenarios. Why the multiple revisionism? Who is telling Mrs. Daniels what to say? What is being covered up?

Another point which for me is not new is the issue of Barbara Olson's calls to then solicitor-general Ted Olson. Mrs. Olson's supposed call is among the foundational cement in the definitiveness of the official account of 9/11, whereby airliners were hijacked by terrorists. Mr. Olson first claimed, on 9/11 itself, that Barbara phoned him twice, from a cell phone. On Sept. 14, however, Olson told FOX's Hannity & Colmes program that she called the department of justice, collect. He then speculated that this was because she did not have her credit cards with her and therefore couldn't make a normal-way call. This scenario, of course, would be consistent with not a cell phone call but a seatback airphone. Astonishingly enough, Mr. Olson changed his story again later that same night on Larry King, reverting back to cell phone. He said that the second call went dead because "signals coming from cell phones from airplanes don't work that well." Two months later, at a memorial service, Mr. Olson flip-flopped AGAIN, settling with airphone. Why so many self-contradictions on Mr. Olson's part? Not only does Olson contradict himself, he is contradicted by other sources, one of whom is the FBI. The FBI acknowledged, via documents released after the Moussaoui trial, that there were only two on-board phone call attempts by Barbara Olson, and these were unable to connect and therefore lasted "zero seconds." This SHOULD be front page news around the world. Where are our investigative journalists?

9/11 Contradictions lays out literally hundreds of internal contradictions within the official account of 9/11, some blatant, some subtle; but every one of these contradictions is important in that each undermines the credibility of the whole story, and journalists, as our "Fourth Estate," have an obligation, a responsibility, to look into these inconsistencies. Unfortunately, the First Amendment seems to only be alive and well on the internet and alternative media, for the corporate-controlled media has not looked into even one of these inconsistencies. Indeed when Michael Moore exposed Bush's classroom behavior to the mainstream, many pundits in the corporate media hopped onto the "Michael Moore is un-American!" bandwagon. The corporate media has clearly lost the trust of much of the American people for not asking the tough questions leading into the Iraq war; questions which, had they been vigorously addressed, might have averted the war from the get go. For this, hard 9/11 questions notwithstanding, they are already going to be remembered in history as the generation of media that failed its citizens. Whereas we look back to the days of Edward R. Murrow as an era of journalistic integrity, we will look back on this era's journalism with shame. Indeed, TV news commentators who spew forth the idea that 9/11 Truthers should be tased and kept in secret prisons will be viewed, in a couple decades, the way we now view Dr. Goebbels. However, the media just might begin to redeem themselves if they wake up and begin asking the hard questions about 9/11, and should they choose to take this red pill, Griffin's works are the perfect arsenal toward restoring true democracy in the United States.