(AP wire piece here. -rep.)

Lawmaker asks McCain to talk with 9/11 theorists

Matthew Benson - The Arizona Republic - Jun. 3, 2008

An Arizona state senator is petitioning presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain to meet with 9/11 conspiracy theorists, including an adjunct professor from Scottsdale who has been fasting outside McCain's Phoenix office for more than a week.

State Sen. Karen Johnson, a Mesa Republican, delivered a letter to McCain's Senate office Tuesday asking that he sit down with Scottsdale activist Blair Gadsby and a pair of leading members of the 9/11 Truth Movement to consider alternative explanations for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. Gadsby's fast outside McCain's Senate office entered its 10th day today.

"There are so many questions left unanswered," said Johnson, who called for a new, independent investigation into the attacks.

She has previously been the focus of media attention for her vocal misgivings about the government account of 9/11. Again Tuesday, she said, "There's no explanation - no legitimate explanation - about why those towers and Building 7 came down."

WTC 7 was the third building to collapse at the complex, though it wasn't directly struck by either aircraft.

Gadsby said he'll maintain his office vigil until McCain pledges to sit down with him, Richard Gage, founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, and Steven Jones, a physicist who claims to have done laboratory analysis and found evidence of explosives in the WTC rubble. Their conditions: a pledge of two hours with McCain, plus national media coverage.

Gadsby, an adjunct community college professor, said he's been told by McCain staffers that the senator is too busy to meet. The Republic had no luck Tuesday reaching representatives of either McCain's Senate office or presidential campaign. But he appears unsympathetic to 9/11 conspiracy theorists, and occasionally has sparred with them on the campaign trail over the past year.

He also wrote the foreword to a 2006 book titled Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts. It was written by the editors of Popular Mechanics magazine.

"We cannot let these tales go unanswered," McCain wrote, saying that the "9/11 conspiracy movement exploits the public's anger and sadness" and "traffics in ugly, unfounded accusations of extraordinary evil against fellow Americans."

Well aware of McCain's earlier comments, Gadsby said it's his belief that the senator "has been deceived by these scientists" and the "whitewash" surrounding 9/11.

"I believe he has the character to do the right thing," continued Gadsby, who has lost 20 pounds during his fast on a diet of water and electrolytes.

Generally speaking, his theory for the 9/11 attacks involves a government-led inside job with the intent to provide an impetus for war in the Middle East. He and Johnson point to the possible use of controlled explosives planted prior to Sept. 11 to bring down the WTC towers, saying collisions with the airliners alone wouldn't have been sufficient.

"We need to know what happened on 9/11," Johnson wrote in her letter to McCain. "Nearly 3,000 Americans died that day, and we deserve to know the truth about what happened."