No Fact Check! Spike Lee Doubles Down on 9/11 Trutherism In Softball WashPost Chat

Spike Lee, a leftist film director is on Sunday’s cover Washington Post MagazineWith the headline, “By any Means Necessary.” This could also include conspiracy theories regarding 9/11. Post interviewer K.K. Ottesen gave Lee the opportunity to be sympathetic about his 30 minute cut in his documentary NYC EpicenterArguments derived from the 9/11 Truthers are being spun.

[Y]They were given a lot of criticism for including them. So I wanted to ask you about why you chose to include them in the first place — and then why you decided to cut them?

We are grateful that you asked this question. First of all, just because somebody says it’s debunked does not mean it’s not true. The Warren Commission said the motherf—ing magical bullet did a 360-change midair and killed — that was the bullet that assassinated JFK! It worked! defies physics. Bullets don’t do that. So just because somebody says “debunked” does not mean that it’s false. You mean that I was told in school by Christopher Columbus that America was discovered by a motherf—ing terrorist!

Which side do you think? What do you think? [9/11 theories] These are true? Oder do you believe they? May True?

I think that there’s things that need to be discussed. My work is a mix of documentaries and feature films. The audience decides what I want. Simple. It’s simple. People, before they come to my theaters, they’ve lived a life. They’ve been impacted where they grew up, the education — all those factors. So I don’t expect everybody to have the same reaction to the film. People today still stop me in the street and say, “Spike, who did the right thing in ‘Do the Right Thing?’ ” And I say, “Who do Please enter your email address think?”

Without it, I wouldn’t be the filmmaker I am today. just because someone says it’s not true you can’t do it.

Lee claimed that the edits were forced upon him.

Hence, why do you finally decide to cut?

Well, I really wasn’t given a choice, to be honest.

By HBO, or …

I wasn’t given a choice. This too shall pass. I’ll leave it at that.

Someone wrote that you may have actually “captured the collective psyche of the moment” in including that material because there Is a big rise in so-called conspiracy theories because there’s a lot of distrust.

Yeah. I included people — scientists, architects — who aren’t buying the story that, especially the third tower [at the World Trade Center] crumpled to the ground — that has never happened before in the history of steel structures, ever, so I did not see harm letting people decide their own mind.

What some media did was what I thought was truly not right, and some dirty, underhanded s—, was because You have this in the documentary, they’re aligning me with the motherf—ers that tried to overthrow the government at the Capitol. They attempted to throw me into the same bag with them as they! They told me that my actions were the same as those of the insurrectionists. This was completely wrong. That was deliberate. In some way they succeeded. They joined me in solidarity with me and the anti-vaxxers on January 6, 2017.

This is a bizarre thing for Post On the one hand, to establish a Fact Checker project, insisting that Truth is under attack. Then, Spike Lee can just let wild conspiracy theories go, while Spike Lee touts him as having captured a collective psyche. Or, a collective hoookiness.

Sonny Bunch decried this all in the PostWhen the Lee controversy broke out last August.