The Democratic Strategist's James Vega has a bad case of denial regarding the ideological fringe within his camp.

Vega has written two critiques in so many weeks about a recent column of mine headlined “Both Parties Have Their Fanatics.”

In the second piece, on Thursday, Vega termed the column “a particularly nasty commentary.” The part he saw as “nasty” was the part referring to Democratic ideologues, because he appears ideological in his belief that conservatives have more radical ideologues.

In Vega's first write up he accused me of asserting that the Democratic fringe was “nuttier” than the Republican fringe. He argued that my column implied:

Democrats are not only nuttier than Republicans, but the liberal media, as usual, is giving them a free pass.

I don't believe either party has a greater purchase on radicalism. That was the entire point of my column. It's why I rounded off that there is an “ideological third” in both camps, despite one poll giving the impression that Democrats had more radicals.

In that column, I compared the “birther” conspiracy theorists to the “truther” conspiracy theorists. Vega's general critique was that the comparison amounted to false equivalence.

Here is how I led my piece:

Fully 35 percent of Democrats believe George W. Bush had advance knowledge of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Fully 28 percent of Republicans believe Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States

Meet the fanatical third

The tale of two conspiracy theories is the tale of the most polarized among us. The two statistics are based on a poll apiece. Neither is an exact measure. Yet, lots of liberals say take the "birther" poll on face value. Lots of conservatives say take the "truther" poll on face value. So let's listen to both sides ...

I used qualifiers because a singular poll, on so contentious of a point, is imperfect at best. I never wrote of the Rasmussen “truther” poll until recently because it seemed inconclusive.

But I don't enjoy suffering soapbox politics from any political camp. The lecturing from some liberals, and the wider media, on “birthers” begged some, well, let he who is without fanatics cast the first stone.

It turns out, there is more data. Dartmouth Assistant Professor Brendan Nyhan jumped into the debate and found a survey conducted by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University. That poll asked, in July 2006, the likelihood of this statement:

There are also accusations being made following the 9/11 terrorist attack. One of these is: People in the federal government either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop the attacks because they wanted the [sic] United States to go to war in the Middle East.

Result:

• Very likely 16%
• Somewhat likely 20%
• Not likely 59%
• Don't know 5%

At the time, the poll did not offer a partisan breakout. So I got in touch with Guido Stempel, director of the Scripps Survey Research Center, and asked for the cross-tab by party. Here it is:

Very likely:

• Dem 22.6%
• GOP 4.9%
• Inde 16.7

Somewhat likely:

• Dem 28.2%
• GOP 12.6%
• Inde 15.2%

This means that, according to the Scripps poll, about half of Democrats, about a third of Independents and nearly a fifth of Republicans said it was "likely" that “federal officials either participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or took no action to stop them” in order to go to war.

That's disturbing, even if we allow for statistical margin of error

But deep breath, as I wrote in my initial column, these questions often are “nets that capture extreme partisans,” and often emotions at a moment of heightened opposition.

But the “truther” conspiracy does appear to more significantly transcend partisanship. And no matter who believes it, it remains among the worst breed of conspiracy theories.

I heavily qualified the Rasmussen “truther” question because it only asked, “Did Bush know about the 9/11 attacks in advance?” And as Vega and others noted, that could have captured some folks who correctly knew that George W. Bush's administration was warned of the real threat of terrorist attacks similar to what occurred on September 11, 2001.

Nate Silver wrote, regarding my column, there is a “qualitative” difference between the “truther” and “birther” impact in Congress. I also cannot recall as many Democrats on the Hill tolerating the “truthers” when directly asked. But similarly, I cannot recall a man with a video camera asking a host of liberal Democrats the question.

I find it very hard to believe half of Democrats, a third of Independents and nearly a fifth of Republicans are open to “truther” theories. Even the Scripps question leaves some room for those who believe W. Bush's government was merely incompetent.

Vega's second post spends a lot of words attempting to outright disregard the Scripps poll, however. To me, that reaction is as absurd as a conservative who uses the Scripps poll to argue that half of Democrats clearly believe W. Bush caused or allowed the September 11 attacks to justify war.

The poll question gave a statement that infers either complicity in the September 11 attacks or enough foreknowledge--“took no action”--in order to go to war.

Vega titled that first critique, "a quick lesson: how to misinterpret a poll…”

His second critique is a lesson on how to ignore one.

Well, Vega chewed the poll, somewhat. He concluded:

I'll concede that there are some Democrats who are really nutty -- just a whole lot fewer, I suspect, than Republicans.

I don't know which political camp has more nuts. But Vega's reaction to the Scripps poll reminds me of the concluding paragraph in my initial column:

A few years ago, an Emory psychologist scanned the brains of self-described partisans. Partisans were able to notice the hypocritical statements of the opposing candidate but not the inconsistencies of their preferred candidate. Ideology, it was determined, showed effects similar to drug addiction.

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