General Discussion

Whether this was, or was not a LIHOP (intentionally lax security inviting crisis) or somehow engineered (people in a resistance CAN BE, and HAVE BEEN intentionally radicalized in the service of the counter-resistance) , we will likely never known. So, absent exposure, asserting "staged" makes one a "conspiracy nut."

Because my first thought was "too well timed with all time polling lows to be real," I'm apparently a conspiracy nut.

I've been kicking myself a bit as I read the "staged" and "STFU about it" posts here.

Richard Teresi's message is an essential one. Perhaps we will never know which POV is true, but the fact that my initial instinct was "something is seriously wrong here -- too convenient" no longer bothers me. Even if just a gut instinct that is somehow unequivocally proven to be wrong, when viewed "through the lends of historical pattern recognition" that gut instinct is NOT CRAZY."