Conspiracy theories

Entertainment | They may explain political protest of ABC’s 9/11 film but rarely describe how networks work | Mindy Belz

David Horowitz is usually the one taking on academia, Hollywood, and other liberal bastions. But occasionally it comes right back at the FrontPage Magazine editor and founder of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, himself a former leftist and civil-rights activist. Mr. Horowitz, 67, woke up on Sept. 11 to discover he'd been labeled "the godfather" of ABC's controversial The Path to 9/11.

Max Blumenthal, a popular columnist for The Nation, wrote that the two-part series was "produced and promoted by a well-honed propaganda operation consisting of a network of little-known right-wingers working from within Hollywood." Horowitz, he said, "is working with a secretive evangelical religious right group" headed by Path director David Cunningham (left) to proclaim "its messianic vision."