As laughably silly and mickey-mouse as Alex Jones appeared trying to hide his conspiracy theorizing in the early hours following Cory Lidle’s plane crash in New York City (is it a “government psy-ops campaign“?!), I can’t stress enough who he is: one of THE main stars in the 9/11 “truth” movement that’s so captivated the howling mad academic left.

See, for example, this Chronicle of Higher Education story (subscriber site) from June 23 of this year:

On this Friday afternoon, 500 conspiracy theorists descended on the Embassy Suites for a conference called “9/11: Revealing the Truth ? Reclaiming Our Future.” It was the most substantial gathering of the “9/11 truth movement,” as the conspiracy theorists call themselves, to date. … That night, the first keynote address was delivered by Alex Jones (no relation to Steven), a radio personality from Austin, Tex., who has developed a cult following by railing against the New World Order. He is a bellicose, boyish-looking man with a voice that makes him sound like a cross between a preacher and an announcer at a cage wrestling match.

“It energizes my soul at its very core to be here with so many like-minded people,” he began, “defending the very soul of humanity against the parasitic controllers of this world government, who are orchestrating terror attacks as a pretext to sell us into even greater slavery.”

“If they think they’re gonna get away with declaring war on humanity,” he thundered, “they’ve got another think coming!”

The audience was a mix of rangy, long-haired men with pale complexions, suntanned guys with broad arms and mustaches, women with teased bangs, serious-looking youngsters wearing backpacks and didactic T-shirts, and elderly people with dreadlocks. But everyone seemed to get behind what Alex Jones had just said. In fact, they went absolutely wild with cheers.

Alex Jones then plunged into a history of what he called “government-sponsored terror.” In this category, he included the Reichstag fire of 1933, the sinking of the USS Maine, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and a shadowy, never-executed 1962 plan called Operation Northwoods, in which the Joint Chiefs of Staff approved false terror attacks on American soil to provoke war with Cuba.

Then he got to matters closer at hand. He mentioned the Project for the New American Century, the think tank of prominent neoconservatives that wrote a report in 2000 called “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” which includes a line that many 9/11 Truthers, as they call themselves, know by heart: “The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event ? like a new Pearl Harbor.”

To Alex Jones and to those in the audience, this was as good as finding the plans for September 11 in the neoconservatives’ desk drawers.

“These people are psychopathic predators,” Alex Jones rumbled. “They’ve got to be met head on!” The audience cheered like it was ready to tar and feather someone.