From the Malkin piece John linked to:
I will never forget the alertness of actor James Woods, who notified a stewardess that several Arab men sitting in his first-class cabin on an August 2001 flight were behaving strangely. The men turned out to be 9/11 hijackers on a test run.
What are the odds that one of the half-dozen prominent wingnut movie stars was present at a 9/11 test run? Not saying it didn’t happen, but how come I didn’t hear more about it? Is this yet another example of the liberal media failing to cover stories that illustrate the courage of conservative Americans?
Update. Snopes says it’s true. We are all James Woods now, I guess.
Unabogie
Snopes says yes.
Fcb
Don’t know about the reporting-it-to-staff part, but there were definitely newspaper reports shortly after 9/11 telling that James Woods was convinced he’d seen the hijackers on a trial-run to LAX a week or so before.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Obama burned the evidence when he was getting rid of his Kenyan birf certificate. Duh!
Actually I’m surprised there aren’t more stories of ReaLAMErican Heroes(R) who noticed something was odd about a bunch of swarthy mooslims.
donovong
I didn’t see anything in the Snopes story that confirmed anything other than the fact that he reported four “suspicious” people. And…..? BFD.
clone12
I vaguely remember James Woods saying something to this effect post 911 on TV, it wasn’t as if he was being shut out or anything.
HRA
Yes, I do remember James Woods talking about it on TV.
dfd
One of history’s odd coincidences, and the point is?
forked tongue
I dunno, compared to the unforgettable alertness of President George W. Bush, who notified a CIA briefer telling him about Bin Laden’s plan to strike in the USA that he had “covered his ass,” this strikes me as small change.
cleek
remember when celebrities were supposed to keep their opinions to themselves and not play their fame into political power?
good times!
Bobby Thomson
Snopes does NOT confirm that the passengers Woods reported were actually would-be hijackers on a dry run.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@donovong:It reaffirms the fRighties’ belief that CONSTANT VIGILANCE (and screaming real loud) is the only way to keep from being overrun by Islahomohordes.
And the Malkintents will start calling for the heads of the flight attendant in 5..4…3…
Evolutionary
I don’t know if it is a mistake or not but the Snopes article says he reported his suspicioins to the FBI on September 12th and they interviewed him on September 13th!
dan robinson
I’ve just read a lot of things about this on the web, and a lot of them are in conflict. A month before, a week before 9/11. Four hijackers, two hijackers. I’m not saying that James Woods didn’t see four of the men who later hijacked airplanes, but I don’t think it is a locked down fact at this point.
Seebach
It’s true, but I think it was swept under the rug a little because nobody. Ever. Could. Have. Seen. It. Coming. At. All.
Middle easterners were never suspected as terrorists before 9/11.
There were never plane hijackings before 9/11.
A Bush administration official is on record, somewhere, saying that she thought Osama bin Laden was the name of a muppet. I need to find that now.
The idea that anyone could have foreseen danger put the lie to the Bush story, so it was not covered further.
Brick Oven Bill
So Bush wouldn’t listen to James Woods OR read the memo titled “Bin Laden determined to strike within the US”
Did Bush listen to anyone?
kommrade reproductive vigor
the head of the flight attendant.
kwAwk
It does appear to be true.
kwAwk
It does appear to be true.
Evolutionary
I should also say that his flight was in August according to Snopes.
SpotWeld
Lets see what Ed Woods did *not* do.
He didn’t make a scene on the plane.
He didn’t freak out.
He didn’t cower in fear until the scary people were gone.
He accessed the situation, he acted accordingly and went on with the rest of his life.
kwAwk
Wow. Double post and f’ed up block quotes. Twofer!
Bobby Thomson
Not to mention that “it” hasn’t been proven, kwAwk, if the “it” is that Woods tried to drop a dime on actual would-be hijackers, rather than suspected would-be hijackers.
RandyH
James Woods is a Wingnut? I know who he is, but I had no idea that someone observing some arabs behaving weirdly on a flight BEFORE 9/11 would necessarily make them a Wingnut.
I have no idea what his politics are, but if I saw something like that BEFORE 9/11 and it made an impression on me, I would hope people would listen to me later and not label me as something that fits what their political ideology says I should be labeled.
What I remember about the time is that we didn’t play politics. An enemy attacked all of us, we were all honest (for a while) about what happened and we were all helpful to one-another (for a while.)
Everything was pretty-well covered at the time, as I remember. Sorry to say Doug, but you’re sounding a little conspiracy-nutty in your post.
Nick
Hm, what does it say about our intelligence and law enforcement that they couldn’t stop these guys even with a celebrity raising the red flag?
General Winfield Stuck
I think James Woods is a nut. But have not heard that he is one of winger variety.
Cat Lady
This story was prominently featured in the Boston Globe shortly after 9/11. James Woods’ mother lives in the Boston area and he travels that route all the time. He gave an interview to a local reporter and he was truly shaken up, which stuck with me, because it rang true.
Seebach
James Woods is Catholic wingnut, not nativist wingnut, so he probably didn’t have the urge to eat Arab babies until post-9/11.
calipygian
Doughy Pantload is so going to take a huge Doughy Pantload shit all over Mike Potemra at the Corner.
And then Andy McCarthy is going to gut Mike Potemra, ostensibly looking for Obama’s birth certificate.
phoebes-in-santa fe
I heard about it, too, right after 9/11.
I heard he was on a flight from Boston to LA one week before, on that Tuesday, and he noticed the suspicious persons – in 1st class – and reported it to someone or the other. I don’t know whether it was the UA or the AA flight he was on, but that he was in Boston visiting his mother and returning to LA.
And, I like what SpotWeld@20 wrote.
James Woods is supposed to be very smart. I don’t know his politics. I did believe his story when I heard it.
Shawn in ShowMe
I eat before I board the plane and talk to my fellow passengers in whispers. But I’m not of Middle Eastern descent so I guess I’m not suspicious. Now let’s say that these guys were Muslims. What the hell is so suspicious about Muslims fasting?
soonergrunt
@Brick Oven Bill:
Who are you, and what have you done with Brick Oven Bill?
RaptureReadyAndLovinIt
@soonergrunt:
Bill has been eaten by James Woods.
jack fate
Regarding the Snopes.com update and Anchor Baby’s claim: Nowhere in the Snopes.com article does it assert or confirm that the men James Woods observed were, in fact, any of the hijackers responsible for the World Trade Center/Pentagon attacks. Just sayin’. If there is further proof or evidence that Woods witnessed a “dry run” by the people that actually carried out the attack, it’s not mentioned nor supported by that aforementioned Snopes.com article.
MediaGlutton
Yeah, DougJ, you should change this update. The fact that James Woods says he saw pre-9/11 hijackers on one of his flights hasn’t been confirmed, so I wouldn’t say Snopes was correct. It’s possible that I saw the 9/11 hijackers at a Republican National Committee meeting, but just because I said it doesn’t make it true. You should change the post.
jack fate
just sayin’
Max
Woods gave a whole rundown on this during an appearance on Howard Stern not long after 9/11.
Max
@DougJ – Here is video of James talking about it on Fox.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0lzZvCNkJw&feature=PlayList&p=ABA70DFB5BA39A1B&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=82
maya
We see wingnuts behaving strangely every freakin’ day of every freakin’ year. Since we’re not on a plane should we notify them ?
maya
Them!
soonergrunt
@RaptureReadyAndLovinIt: That’s just wrong. Funny, but wrong.
@DougJ:
This isn’t an example of bravery. This is an example of the ability to hit the ‘call’ button. I realize that to wingers this is the same thing, but to the rest of society, it isn’t.
Bend
I remember this happening. Also, though I’m loathe to put my lot in with Malkin, I don’t think James Wooda is a wingnut. I think he might be a republican, but if so I’m fairly certain he’s a relativley a-political one.
However, I’m also sure that some rule of the Internet will ensure that I am totally wrong and video will turn up of he and Jon Voight burning Obama in effigy.
hal
Snopes only confirms that Woods reported suspicious activity before 9/11. No confirmation that the 9/11 hijackers were on his plane. I’m sure James Woods wants to be right, and I’m sure anyone who encountered “middle-eastern looking” people right before 9/11 might have thought after 9/11 that they could have stopped 9/11 from happening. Doesn’t mean it’s true.
res ipsa loquitur
Woods was on either Leno or Letterman discussing it at one point. Can’t find the YouTube, though.
Max
@Bend: Loved W, and Rudy and endorsed McCain in the 2008 election.
Big Iraq war guy, from what I recall.
Chad N Freude
Anybody bother to check his bio? Short version: Smart enough to be an MIT dropout (to become an actor), Bush-Giuliani-McCain Republican.
Very interesting 2003 interview with him here. He comes across in the interview as intelligent and dare I say thoughtful. He seems to think of himself as a middle-of-the-roader, in spite of the fact that he liked Bush and thought his missteps on the Iraq War lead-up were
El Cid
@hal: For some time as seat belt laws were coming into vogue virtually everyone I knew swore they knew someone who ‘would have been killed’ in an accident if they had been wearing their seatbelt because of [fill in the blank for whatever completely unconvincing and folk science story].
mai naem
I remember hearing about Woods although I don’t remember it being specifically the actual 9/11 hijackers. Also too, Woods is kinda on the nutty side but he’s also supposed to be sharp. I might be wrong but I believe he’s an Ivy League grad. And yeah, I know GW Bush was an Ivy League grad too.
Chad N Freude
@El Cid: As seat belt laws were coming into vogue, I had an accident in which I almost certainly would have been killed if I had not been wearing a not-yet-mandatory lap+shoulder belt, offered as an upscale option on my shiny new MGB.
Ash
Whoa, this is random. A friend of mine who lives in Shreveport, LA was an extra recently in Woods’ new movie that he shot down there. he spent a long time just sitting around talking to the cast, and he told me that the guy seems pretty smart, but he’s big into conspiracy theories and said “they” (whoever the fuck they are) were trying to “silence” him from telling this story.
Brachiator
@hal:
I recall Woods talking about this on some talk show. I never heard him claim that he needed to be right or even make a huge deal about it other than to note what he saw and that he had reported it to the authorities. I don’t recall Woods making any grandstanding appearances anywhere or joining the tea bagger movement.
Chad N Freude
@mai naem: MIT, dropped out senior year to become an actor. I have read that he followed an aspiring actress girlfriend to New York and decided he wanted to be an actor.
Zach
Woods’ claims were well known before the 9/11 commission report… and obviously verifiable if true by crossreferencing the two passenger lists. Seems extremely unlikely that the story would still be inconclusive if it were true… too good to not report, really.
In fact, Chapter 7 of the 9/11 report details all of the casing flights made by the hijackers. No Logan->LAX link noted, and the hijackers didn’t case flights in teams.
Wendy
James Woods grew up in Rhode Island and, coincidentally, is in the news here lately because he’s suing a local hospital over his brother’s death. If he is a right-winger, he’s one of the hypocritical ones who are all for tort reform except when they need to sue someone.
RandyH
Before 9/11 I used to fly several flights per week, every single week. It was crazy and I hated all of the travel for work. But after a while, once you earn enough miles, the airlines would automatically bump you up to first class, even on your dirt-cheap coach fare. That’s the way it was then. I was often flying with my Indian-immigrant work partner. After 9/11 it got too ugly at the airports for him to fly at all anymore. We both switched jobs to travel less.
BEFORE 9/11, people were generally pretty social up-front. No one would make a fuss over famous people or anything like that. But if you saw weird behavior (people REFUSING the great food or whatever-you-want unlimited drinks, or resenting the great service,) you would notice it.
At the time, there was absolutely no reason to suspect any particular ethnic group of any kind of conspiracy on a plane. AFTER 9/11 is when that changed. Things were pretty innocent BEFORE. We had gone decades without a major hijacking.
From what I’ve heard of James Woods’ account of his flight, it would have struck me as VERY strange at the time as well. But I wouldn’t have reported it until AFTER 9/11 or people might think I’m just some racist or something.
Brian J
What are the odds a siting president brushed aside a memo that said Al Qaeda was determined to attack the U.S.? One hundred fucking percent, that’s what!
Who gives a shit what James Woods saw a few weeks before it happened? This is like me saying that I once stood in line near John Lott for coffee when I went to college and he was a visiting professor. It’s a neat little story, but little else.
Curtis G.
What Snopes doesn’t mention is that James Woods points out Middle Eastern passengers to the flight attendants on every flight he takes.
Martin
The conclusion is bullshit. We climbed all over the history of the hijackers and if Woods saw any of them, we’d know for sure. Maybe he saw some other terrorists, who’s to know – but it wasn’t any of the 19.
MikeJ
Did you know that California was supposed to be the golden pear, not bear state?
It’s on Snopes, so it must be true.
Ahem.
dSquib
@RandyH: Are you saying that after 9/11 you’d consider someone refusing the “great food” on board an airplane as suspicious behaviour?
Cat G
I saw Woods tell the story on some talk show. I thought his story was credible. One bit that stuck with me was that on the morning of 9’12 or 9″13 he got a phone call that FBI agents wanted to talk to him, and they were sitting in his driveway and had called him on his unlisted phone. It was an interesting story. I don’t recall that he said he had seen any of the 19, it was much more that it was reconnaissance he was observing.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@Max: Interesting conversation – even if it was with O’Reilly.
Woods was traveling on American/11 on August 1, 2001, Boston/Los Angeles. I had heard that his trip was the Tuesday before 9/11, but he says it was August 1st.
RaptureReadyAndLovinIt
@soonergrunt:
I know, but I meant it in the most nurturing way possible.
RandyH
@dSquib:
Don’t be stupid. Take the whole comment in its’ entirety. You’re just being an idiot.
Trollhattan
This raises an obvious question:
Harrison Ford versus hijackers, Wesley Snipes versus hijackers or James Woods versus hijackers?
Discuss.
calling all toasters
I’m pretty sure this proves James Woods* was in on 9/11, and was just testing to see if the FBI was paying attention to the possibility of hijackings. When Woods* gave the all clear, Atta was ready to go.
* or possibly Liv Tyler.
LD50
This doesn’t strike me as especially thoughtful or insightful — just the usual Republican nonsense but with a larger vocabulary and more complicated sentence structure.
Max
@Trollhattan: Wesley!
Always bet on black.
I love that movie.
jack fate
Again, is there any proof that the people James Woods made note of and complained about were part of the group of hijackers that executed the attacks on September 11, 2001? Otherwise, and as usual, the Authoritarian Most Holy Lady of Perpetual Outrage is full of shit.
General Winfield Stuck
I won’t believe any of it until I see it on the cover of the Rolling Stone.
Anyways, not surprising nothing was done. Nor when FBI reports to headquarters of at least two instances of Arab men taking flying lessons but not to land or take off.
The terrorists before 9-11 could have rolled a nuke down Times Square in a Red Flier Wagon labeled “big ass bomb” and nobody would have batted an eyelash, here in the land of Lilliputians.
dSquib
@RandyH:
But I am! You said something about things being innocent “BEFORE”. So I was wondering what is strange about refusing food aboard an airplane, which is notoriously bad, and whether this was one of those things that was innocent “BEFORE” but would now take on a sinister element.
RandyH
@dSquib:
I get it.
BEFORE 9/11, I had never had a bad meal in First Class. Of course the food in coach was mediocre to bad. But (at that time,) in First-Class, where all of this went down, it would be odd to see a couple of guys refusing food, drinks and service so they could whisper to each other, watch the cockpit door and generally plot some conspiracy. I don’t know what it’s like lately, but back then, the food, drinks and service in First Class on the airlines I flew regularly was stuff to really look forward to.
BongCrosby
For what it’s worth, not only is James Woods a pretty smart guy — you ain’t getting into M.I.T. with your Bong Crosby I.Q. — but he’s reportedly a pretty good high stakes poker player. You need good powers of observation and a solid understanding of psychology to win at that level.
While it would be nice to be able to compare the passenger lists, it would not surprise me if that’s the way it went down.
Darkrose
@dSquib:
I would in coach, because they don’t feed you anymore, even on cross-country flights.
lojasmo
Confirmed by Snopes: James Woods is a racist douche.
“Didn’t sleep or eat” OMGWTFBBQ! That’s “unusual” and so makes them terrorists on a dry run!
Dimwit.
bob h
August, 2001. Gee, wasn’t that during the Bush administration, when Cheney was heading a Task Force on Terrorism, and George Tenet was issuing frantic warnings trying to get the administration’s attention?
brantl
Sorry, but Bush was playing politics the whole time. Were you asleep? He used the opportunity to lie his way into attacking Iraq (who didn’t attack us, but had loads of that lovely oil, didn’t they?), and he said, “I feel like I’ve won the trifecta.”, and then he proceeded to out a CIA agent, spy on the american people, fire US attorneys, allow New Orleans to rot, and lie about all of it to the american people. Not to mention lining his cronies’ pockets in every possible way. No, the Republicans played politics with this from day one, the douchebags.
Paul MacDonald
Well, if Woods is a wingnut, it would be unlikely he would add his voice to uber-Liberal Seth McFarlane’s “Family Guy”. McFarlane wouldn’t have him and McFarlane’s works are hardly wingnut friendly.
Why is it so hard to believe that Woods saw suspicious behaviour and reported it? The pushback on this is idiotic. The info was passed along to higher ups who, oddly, were made aware of the possibility of hijackings earlier in the summer. That nothing was done about it should shock no one.
I always confuse James Woods with Peter Weller.
RememberNovember
So why didn’t Jimmy Went to an Ivy League school Woods not get a medal of freedumb?
So he reported suspicious behavior- and who dropped the ball after that? Did the captain file it in his flight log?
Did it go up the chain?
Or did someone yank the chain on the way ?
do NOT confuse Woods with Weller, one was Robocop, the other was not.
Robin G.
I know the “not eating or talking” thing sounds thin, but… sometimes, sixth sense intuition can look really stupid on paper. Surely everyone knows what I’m talking about — you’re in a situation and all of your alarm bells go off, but when describing it to a friend later, you can’t really point to what it was? (Maybe not everyone here has felt that, but I bet most of the women have.)
I’m not necessarily saying that Woods got a sixth sense here, maybe it was just plain racism, or a bad acid trip. But to say, in seriousness, to a flight attendant, “I think this plane is going to be hijacked”? *Before* 9/11? You have to be pretty fucking freaked out to do something like that.
If these weren’t the 9/11 hijackers, I wonder why Snopes doesn’t make a note of it. Then again, I wonder why Snopes wouldn’t say they were. Bad on ya, Snopes.
GranFalloon
Whatever the reason, the cause, etc. . . . Does Malkin realize that, in forwarding her “all brown people are probably terrorists” argument, she has now added to the mounting evidence of the incompetence of the Bush administration in the face of “credible threats” pre-9/11? That is, that James Woods had the guts, wherewithal and premonition to identify these guys – and the Bush admin STILL couldn’t get their arms around it?
Then again, they ignored the “Terrorists will probably fly planes into tall buildings” report, so I guess it’s not that surprising.
GranFalloon
Moreover, if by “behaving strangely,” Woods and Malkin mean “brown people doing something besides reading the in-flight magazine,” then it’s not suprising it didn’t get more coverage. It was probably something on the order of what we used to call “paranoid idiocy,” back when it was still acceptable to let people go about their business without seeing a terrorist around every corner. Fact of the matter is, Malkin et al. won’t stop until a full body-cavity search of all non-Anglos (and, presumably, filipino-americans). There is no need to cite this as anything more than “blind squirrel finding an acorn.”
ACORN, you say? HMMMMMMMM.
Pangloss
Reporting suspicious Muslims is so heroic it can get a high school named after you, apparently.
rs
@Paul MacDonald:I remember reading Seth McFarlane missed one of the 9-11 flights because of a hangover.
Wood’s story sounds plausible to me. I generally notice the behavior of the people sitting around me on flights. Most of us stereotype to a greater or lesser extent. And a world class poker player has to be somewhat adept at profiling.
fraught
Even if everything he said was true, even if Mohammed Atta was sitting on his lap, it is still an example of coincidence and not bravery. And he turned out to be right to imagine that hijacking was within the realm of possibility in a time when airline hijacking was an artifact of the 60s.
good observation by Woods, bad interpretation by Malkin.
LongHairedWeirdo
While I don’t want to sound petty, Snopes doesn’t quite say it’s true – merely that, yes, he did report it happening.
It doesn’t say that someone checked flight manifests for that flight, and determined that, yes, those four people he saw were people who were later identified as part of Al Qaeda.
Maybe they were – stranger things have happened, and it’s no big surprise if someone noticed something weird about four people doing something weird. I mean, people who are planning mass murder are *going* to look different from four businessmen enjoying the luxury of first class flying. This is how a great many law enforcement cases are solve, someone getting a feeling that something is just wrong, and pushing, and pushing, until something breaks.
On the other hand, wouldn’t it be just too hilariously funny (if you’re into black humor…) if they’d been investigated, detained, harassed, and interrogated… and they were four average joes who’d just been to Vegas to cheat on their wives, and after a group-sex encounter with prostitutes that had uncomfortable homoerotic tones, they were still freaked out and decompressing?