Lazy Reporting

Elaine Jarvik of the DesNews provides a plug, again (scroll down), for a 911 conspiracy group’s theory that the US Government is responsible for destroying the World Trade Towers on September 11th, 2001. Her report basically parrots the group’s website (Scholars for 911 Truth).

One of the tidbits she apparently gleaned from the website’s biography page, without fact-checking, is one group member, Robert M. Bowman, was a former director of the "Star Wars" defense program.

The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was a missile defense program initiated by Ronald Reagan. It was quickly dubbed "Stars Wars" after the earlier movie of the same name. The first director of SDI was Lieutenant General Abramson.

The conspiracy group's website states Robert M. Bowman, a retired USAF Lt Colonel, was the "Former Director of the U.S. "Star Wars" Space Defense Program in both Republican and Democratic administrations."

A quick 30 second "Google" search on "Robert M. Bowman" reveals that Lt Colonel Bowman (USAF retired) claims to have been a director of the "Star Wars" program under Presidents Ford and Carter. Who knows what Lt Colonel Bowman directed, but it was not the SDI one thinks of when invoking the “Star Wars” defense program initiated later under President Reagan (and it certainly would not have been called "Stars Wars" before the movie was released). There is also quite a bit of difference between a Lieutenant Colonel and a Lieutenant General. A reporter more cognizant of the military would have recognized a Lt Colonel would not have been running SDI.

A few other items of interest fall out from the “Google” search on Bowman. He is campaigning to be a Democratic congressional candidate from a district in Florida and he writes on “cults”, which includes a polemic against the Book of Mormon (of interest perhaps to some of the DesNews many Mormon readers). UPDATE (10/30/06): I've got the part about the polemic against the Book of Mormon wrong, the Robert M. Bowman I refered to did not write it. His son clarifies this in the comment below. His son also mentions that his father never claimed to have directed the SDI program. What I have in quotes in the fourth paragraph above is an accurate quote from the website http://www.st911.org/. The media used the term "Star Wars" to refer to the SDI program and I have to conclude the intent of Mr Bowman's use of the term is to gain more authority for his position. This was certainly the way Ms. Jarvik took it.

We’ll always have conspiracy groups; I would just like to see DesNews reporters do a little more work than print their news releases. Its only fair to the people being accused of treason.