Disarming conspiracy theory.

Most of our readers -- hello all! -- are probably unaware of the rigorous, even savage review process each post must undergo before it appears here on the DHAIP site. Arguments last well into the small hours about the most seemingly mundane issues: use of italics, photo choices, the spelling of "tumescence," etc. We do this because we care. About you. The Reader. (Italics approved 4:30 PM Thursday; bold print rejected as "too pushy.")

Thus, in our careful checking process, we have decided to clarify a couple of phrases in our previous post, "A wish-list for a Democratic Congress." It occurred to our board that these phrases could have suggested an unintentionally sinister import, which in a political climate never far from hysteria might create entirely the wrong impression.

First: our mention of the 2.3 trillion dollars gone missing in the Pentagon, the loss of which, as we perhaps too-ominously pointed out, was announced on September 10, 2001. "Curiously," we said, "the item fell out of the news the very next day."

Our detached, dry tone may be open to misreading there. As it happened, the item did fall off the radar the next day, for obvious and tragic reasons, and as a result, it never got the attention (even outrage) it deserved. And trillions of dollars are, after all, trillions of dollars. These kind of numbers add up. And now Mr. Rumsfeld is leaving office with the matter, to our knowledge, never quite cleared up. Is this wise? Has someone checked his pockets? Or suppose it's all just sitting around in a box somewhere. That kind of money could greatly reduce the national deficit. Why not check the basement?

We never in any way meant to suggest that the item was deliberately announced at this highly convenient time. No one can see the future. But this administration has shown itself very canny at the the politics of distraction. If the government perhaps suspected that something might change the subject within the next few days -- you know, from the "noise" they talk about monitoring -- however vague their idea of what that might be, then surely that's worth knowing as well. Yes?

Second: our mention of the anthrax attacks, which we referred to as an "oddly-timed act of bioterrorism." Well, it was. The only known act of bioterrorism on American soil occurred a month after September 11, spread panic for a couple of weeks, killed five people, and then faded so rapidly from the public consciousness that you'd barely know it happened. The strangest and most mysterious act of unsolved serial murder since Jack the Ripper.

Now the fact that these murders occurred at just the time that the word "Iraq" began to be bandied about in the press, with Saddam Hussein's presumed chemical and bio-weaponry first beginning to be marched out as a concern, and with the Patriot Act coming up for a vote, is unavoidably true. After it was speculated, however, that the killer was most likely an American working alone and not a foreign terrorist, the panic began to dissipate, and the crimes themselves stopped for no known reason.

Whatever the reason for that, is it too cynical to suggest that public belief that this was an act of actual international terrorism was highly convenient to the administration's future strategy? And that perhaps a mundane American psychopath was less useful to them than the idea of shadowy minions of Saddam Hussein? And that perhaps -- just perhaps -- the FBI was asked to slow their investigation down just a bit (which turned out to be too much)? That's all we suggest.

Over-cautious? Yes we are. Because we care. We here at DHAIP certainly don't embrace baseless conspiracy theories unless we've concocted them ourselves. (You never know where the others have been.) As taxpayers, we would like our 2.3 trillion dollars accounted for, and as citizens we shudder at the thought of an uncaptured, anthrax-sowing murderer wandering the countryside. What upstanding Amerikansan wouldn't?