1 – Distrust of the government. Our governments have been caught red-handed in outright lies and coverups so many times, that it’s safer to assume that there’s more to a story than what’s at face value.

2 – The lack of true investigative reporting these days. The mainstream media just doesn’t do this in a big way anymore, and conspiratorialists and conspiracy theories fill the resulting vacuum left by a lack of the media doing its job. Most “reporting” nowdays is putting out press releases handed to them, or running “fluff” pieces on celebrities, etc.

My blog lists conspiracy theories that turned out to be proven fact –

http://conspiraciesthatweretrue.blogspot.com/

plus links to discussions on things that have been considered conspiracies but have been “outted”

I’m glad to see someone has read Steve Dutch’s writings. I’ve exchanged e-mail with him; he seems an interesting and thoughtful man, much in the vein of Michael Chrichton on matters of Science and Public Policy…

Where did the chemical weapons that Jordan intercepted about a year ago, prior to their being let off in Amman come from?

There were a number of tons, as I recall.
Naturally, they didn’t make much splash with the LSM, on account of they may have come from Iraq and ruined the narrative.

re on-topic: benning is the only one to point out the often unreported truth that while we have not found the large stockpiles of WMD expected in Iraq, neither have we found proof that our pre-invasion intelligence was wrong. There is still lots of individual pieces of evidence indicating the weapons were once there. Given the advanced warning afforded Saddam it can’t be discounted that he could have moved, hid or destroyed the weapons he had in the six-month lead up to invasion. We simply can’t prove either position.

Uh oh. I think I see one now — gotta go.

Personally, I always thought the JFK conspiracy was a load of malarky. Unfortunately, very few people read the details of Garfield’s assassination (1881, shot by a self-proclaimed anarchist, died of infection) or the failed attempt on Ford (the gun jammed). Take a look at those, and you see how relatively easy it is for a handful of disgruntled “regular folks” to kill.

I strongly agree with Gerald Posner. Oswald acted alone. Also, he had more than enough ability to shoot President Kennedy. Any decent marksman could have easily accomplished this feat.

“Because of that, VERY persuasive books can be written that take either viewpoint.”

Nonsense. The books supporting the silly conspiracy theories are laughable. Posner’s work is the real deal. It is overwhelmingly convincing.

The conspiracy isn’t one of lying about WMD, but of trying to hide the fact that they are there. MSM is trying anything it can to support its own war against Bush.

It’s like saying “well, he was a terrible quaterback so why would anyone think he could be a baseball pitcher?”. Completely different skills, even though both are throwing something accuratly.

As others have said, for Oswald to make it out of the Marines requires a certain level of proficiency with a rifle.

And to note, I didn’t say I believed that Oswald didn’t act alone, the point of post is that him not is very much in the “plausable” section – there is nothing that negates it and it is one of several possibilities that the evidence shows. The only reason not to believe it is Occam’s Razor, which again is not a law. Because of that, VERY persuasive books can be written that take either viewpoint.