Am I (You Are!) Nuts?

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Terror-baby theory goes for wild ride in media
Scott Stroud
Web Posted: 09/22/2010 -- 12:00 CDT

State Rep. Debbie Riddle asked St. Mary’s University Law Professor Jeffrey Addicott, who runs the Center for Terrorism Law there, a question some folks might answer in the affirmative:

“Do you think that I’m just nuts?”

She wanted to know whether the idea that terrorists might come to the U.S. to give birth and then breed children into terrorists for attacks 15 or 20 years later was too outlandish to be plausible. Citing retired FBI sources she wouldn’t name, the conservative Republican from Tomball had discussed the idea when she was asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper last month.

Riddle described her conversation with Addicott in an interview with Evan Smith of the Texas Tribune last week. Cooper, in turn, cited a conversation one of his staffers had with Addicott to refute her version of events.

Addicott, a nationally recognized terror law expert, didn’t tell Riddle she was nuts. He had bigger issues with CNN, which he said was looking to do a “gotcha” story.

The whole episode left him miffed that people were invoking his name all over the place without letting him speak for himself.

Ultimately, it turned into a study in modern media dynamics — more specifically, how a way-out theory gets amplified beyond what anyone actually believes.

Addicott told me he’d never seen evidence to support the threat Riddle said she’d heard discussed and acknowledged that it “sounds kind of silly,” but he didn’t dismiss it.

“These guys (terrorists) don’t think like we do,” he said. “They’re very patient.”

Riddle’s take on the exchange varied slightly.