This is sure to receive a lot of play at the Democratic Underground Forums over the next few days:

A former Bush team member during his first administration is now voicing serious doubts about the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9-11. Former chief economist for the Department of Labor during President George W. Bush’s first term Morgan Reynolds comments that the official story about the collapse of the WTC is “bogus” and that it is more likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the Twin Towers and adjacent Building No. 7.

“If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9/11, then the case for an ‘inside job’ and a government attack on America would be compelling.” Reynolds commented from his Texas A&M office, “It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause of the collapse of the twin towers and building 7. If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely to be correct either. The government’s collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms.

There’s only one, teensy tiny problem with this economist’s engineering analysis; it’s contradicted by the most knowledgeable experts in the world:

The authors attribute each tower’s collapse to three separate but related “loading events.” The first event was a Boeing aircraft hitting the building, cutting through the exterior structure and creating a fireball that immediately consumed some of the estimated 10,000 gallons (38 kiloliters) of jet fuel. The highrises’ structural systems were sufficiently redundant, however, that this major damage by itself did not cause the collapse. According to the report, “most of the load supported by the failed columns is believed to have transferred to adjacent perimeter columns through Vierendeel behavior of the exterior wall frame.”

The second event was the continuing fire, fed both by the remaining jet fuel and the office contents of furniture and paper. This fire heated and weakened the structural systems, adding stress to the damaged structure. Meanwhile, the sprinklers were not operating as designed. “Even if these systems had not been compromised by the impacts,” says the report, “they would likely have been ineffective… the initial flash fires of jet fuel would have opened so many sprinkler heads that the systems would have quickly depressurized and been unable to effectively deliver water to the large area of fire involvement.”

The third event was a progressive collapse: “As the large mass of the collapsing floors above accelerated and impacted on the floors below, it caused an immediate progressive series of floor failures, punching each in turn onto the floor below, accelerating as the sequence progressed. Freestanding exterior walls… buckled at the bolted column splice connections and also collapsed.”

The report was compiled primarily by the American Society for Civil Engineers, world renowned experts in the field of structural failure. In order to believe anything other than the official report, one would have to posit a conspiracy theory featuring a cast of thousands.

The report was also vetted by experts before it was released. In other words, other scientists and engineers who checked the work of the report’s authors would also have to be involved in a cover-up.

What truly makes this bizarre is that an investigation carried out under the auspices of an independent trade association (ASCE) and verified by the most respected scientists and engineers in the field is being questioned by an economist! Far be it from me to pooh-pooh someone’s abilities in a field that they didn’t have any formal schooling. But the people who investigated the causes for the collapse of the twin towers didn’t just have degrees in civil engineering. Many of them had more than 20 years of experience investigating structural failures around the world. That kind of expertise trumps anything someone like moonbat Reynolds could ever hope to come up with on his own from simply reading books on the subject.

The MSM is ignoring this story, as they should (although UPI evidently had it on their wires). I became aware of the story via Drudge. I say “For Shame” to Drudge for giving this story any play at all.

I would love to see a follow-up story on this moonbat Morgan Reynolds. It would be interesting to hear him try to rebut some of the smartest people on the planet and a report that’s been accepted by scientists all over the world.

UPDATE

Surprisingly, it’s been the right side of the sphere that has picked up on this story. So far, even the DU moonbats and Klueless Kossaks are ignoring it.

Little Green Footballs:

None of the chuckleheads who propose theories like this ever seem to consider that professional demolition on such a scale would have been a gigantic task, would have taken a lot of time to set up, and would have been very visible to the tens of thousands of people who worked in the Trade Center every single day.

Not if they were invisible, Charles. You forget the Rovian Cloak of Invisibility. And don’t forget the Cone of Silence.

Yippee-Ki-Yay:

Don’t ask an engineer, ask an economist.

Precisely. And if I want to know what the inflation rate is going to be next year, I’ll ask my barber.

Stones Cry Out:

Wait! All of this academia lunacy can be explained rather simply. George Soros and MoveOn are putting lead in the water at major universities! Makes perfect sense!

Maybe not lead. More likely a delicious cocktail of Psylicibin soup with a delicate seasoning containing a dash of LSD and a pinch of mescaline.

The World Wide Rant has the moonbat’s email address. Do ya think he’s going to get some weird mail?

We don’t need a follow-up interview with the moonbat. Here’s a piece on paleo-conservative Lew Rockwell’s site by the nutty professor: (HT: The Corner Via Memorandum)

Knowing the personnel of the Commission, its abysmal Report is no surprise. It did its best for the White House, not the nation. Michael C. Ruppert is one of the more radical 9/11 researcher-critics around. Let’s follow his logic for a bit. He says, put aside the acrimonious debate over the physical evidence about what really caused the twin towers, WTC building 7, and the west wall of the Pentagon to collapse; put aside obstructionism by FBI headquarters, the mysterious U.S. military lay down on 9/11, the nonchalant behavior of Bush and the Secret Service on 9/11, the exploded airliner over Pennsylvania, Saudi flights out of the country, the skullduggery of the Pakistani secret service and the Israeli Mossad and a thousand other gaps in the official theory.

Instead, focus on the suspects. If it can be demonstrated via incriminating, irrefutable evidence that the suspects had means, motive and opportunity, then we’re on our way to criminals convicted in the court of truth. Ruppert says that the pivotal evidence that opens up the case and exposes the government conspirators is the secretive yet undisputed air war games that were going on the morning of 9/11. These games, conducted to protect against hijacked airliners as well as a Russian attack, included Vigilant Guardian, Northern Guardian, Vigilant Warrior, and Tripod II. All were reported on by major press organizations relying on quotes from participating military personnel, as well as NORAD press releases.

Now prepare yourself a jolt: “Ruppert’s new book will name Vice President Richard Cheney as the prime suspect in the mass murders of 9/11 and will establish that, not only was he a planner in the attacks, but also that on the day of the attacks he was running a completely separate Command, Control and Communications system which was superseding any orders being issued by the FAA, the Pentagon, or the White House Situation Room.”

Can this be right? Preposterous? Traitorous? Is Ruppert just another wild-eyed crackpot? I don’t know, but at least he’s not “mobbed up.” That’s more than the Commissioners can say. By its incredible behavior before, during and after 9/11, the government brought this spreading disbelief on itself.

And Kevin at Wizbang sums up the professor’s idiocy regarding “the full range of facts” very nicely:

Only if “the full range of facts” excludes those pesky airplanes that billions of people world-wide witnessed on video tape flying into both towers of the World Trade Center…