Whodunnit?

This is pretty damn interesting. A new Scripps poll of 1,010 people has found that roughly one out of three Americans believe that the federal government either had a direct hand in 9/11 or deliberately did nothing to stop it so that we could go to war in the Middle East.

From the Scripps Howard News Service:

"Widespread resentment and alienation toward the national government appears to be fueling a growing acceptance of conspiracy theories about the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon...

University of Florida law professor Mark Fenster, author of the book Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture, said the poll's findings reflect public anger over the Iraq war, realization that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction and growing doubts of the veracity of the Bush administration.

The survey also found that people who regularly use the Internet but who do not regularly use so-called 'mainstream' media are significantly more likely to believe in Sept. 11 conspiracies.

The level of suspicion of U.S. official involvement in a Sept. 11 conspiracy was only slightly behind the 40 percent who suspect 'officials in the federal government were directly responsible for the assassination of President Kennedy' and the 38 percent who believe 'the federal government is withholding proof of the existence of intelligent life from other planets.'"

What I'd like to know here is just how and when such theories began to arise. Motive is pretty easily established, but what evidence of such a vast and terrible plot exists? I mean, there must be some, at least, for roughly 30 percent of the American public to think that the government had a hand in killing several thousand of its own people. Doc? Want to chime in?