Hoaxiness

Stephen Colbert gave us the concept of "Truthiness" -- a "truth" based on gut instinct (or wishful thinking) as opposed to verifiable fact. Conspiracist Tom Flocco specializes in the related concept of "Hoaxiness" -- stories that your rational mind dismisses out of hand, yet which seem to convey a kind of truth. A symbolic truth, perhaps.

Take the latest:

Bush administration officials operated Memorial Day weekend damage control to cover up the deaths of three foreign intelligence operatives—two British and one French—involved in a Friday morning shootout in the House of Representatives parking garage.

The altercation turned into an exchange of automatic weapons fire over a pouch containing evidence files documenting an operation to bomb the rail system along the Northeast corridor on Thursday—with the full knowledge of George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair who was in Washington while the operation was being hatched.

It goes on and on like that. The shootout had something to do with an alleged cladestine auto-body shop in the Rayburn building (!) and with a plan to "arrest" Tony Blair. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Tom Flocco lives in a world more interesting than the one you and I inhabit.

And yet...don't you feel that this story conveys a kind of truth? On a very basic level, it delivers this message: Weird covert shit really does occur from time to time, and we cannot expect the media or the authorities to divulge the facts.

Don't misunderstand: I wouldn't bet half a nickle on the veracity of Flocco's piece. Yet at the same time, there was something genuinely disconcerting about those strange weekend reports of a shootout in the Capitol area. The "gunfire" was later explained away as the sound of carpenter's equipment. Flocco's informant (whoever he or she may be) is -- I am convinced -- a baloney peddler. But even a silly fraud can compel us to ask what really happened.

A hoax that hints at a hidden truth. Hoaxiness.