Blog P.I.

Update, Jan. 2007: Resolved. See: “Myth Busted: Oprah Winfrey and the 9/11 Ticket Agent ‘Suicide.’”

Note: The question mark in the above headline may be removed, depending on how this all plays out. I may also be grievously wrong — but I don’t think so.

Note 2: All updates have been moved to the end of this post. As of early Friday afternoon, the issue remains a mystery. All I can say for certain is that there is no actual proof that an American Airlines ticket agent committed suicide after a brush with 9/11 terrorists.

Earlier this week the political blogosphere witnessed an interesting and fairly infrequent occurrence — a minor blogfight pitting an academic left blogger against an activist left blogger: At the Prospect’s newest blog, Horse’s Mouth, former Spinsanity co-writer Brendan Nyhan slammed Eschaton for taking a callous shot at President Bush. Nyhan initially mistook guest poster Avedon Carol for Atrios himself, and chaos ensued. That’s interesting and all, but I’m distracted from whatever I was going to say about it because… the incident giving rise to the debate — the alleged suicide of a ticket agent who had checked in Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz al-Omari on the way to crash Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center — appears to be an urban legend, hoax or mistake.

You take your pick. Here’s why I think this…

Early on Wednesday morning, Nyhan wrote:

TWO LIBERAL BLOGGERS POLITICIZE A SUICIDE. In a guest post on Eschaton, the blog of Duncan Black (aka Atrios), the blogger Avedon Carol quotes approvingly from a Suburban Guerilla post that uses the tragic suicide of an American Airlines ticket agent to take a swipe at President Bush … Is nothing sacred? And do they want Bush to commit suicide out of remorse, as the post suggests? This is just vile.

As cited by both Carol and Nyhan, Susie Madrak at Suburban Guerilla had written on the morning prior:

The American Airlines ticket agent who checked in Mohammed Atta on 9/11 later committed suicide – unlike the man in charge who, being briefed on the potential threat, told his briefer, “Okay, you’ve covered your ass.”

Madrak’s source was a September 11, 2006 diary at Daily Kos by one teresahill, apparently a “Novelist, former newspaper reporter, soon to be massage therapist in Greenville, South Carolina.” She had written:

AA employee, checked in Atta on 911, later commits suicide, [sic] by teresahill One of Oprah’s guests today was Michael Tuohey, an employee of US AIR who checked in Mohammed Atta and one of the other hijackers on the morning of Sept. 11. A 37-year employee of US Air, Touhey said he’s recently started to see Atta’s face staring at him from cabs that pass by on the street or even at his local mall, that even though he knows it’s not him, Atta looks as real to him today as it did on Sept. 11. Two ticket agents checked in Atta that day, Touhey and a woman with American Airlines in Boston. Touhey said the woman has already committed suicide, and he didn’t seem far from it on the show. (No warning by Atta’s name at all, BTW, you idiots at ABC. Nothing. ID checked out. Ticket checked out. Nothing to tell this broken man he shouldn’t send Atta on his way.)

That diary made the Recommended list and picked up 262 comments. I haven’t seen the show (an Oprah.com preview is of no help) and I can’t get my hands on a transcript [Update: See updates], but the the dKos diarist apparently saw it herself. The show’s official write-up, available on the site, offers the first and only independent report about the alleged suicide:

Plagued by sleepless nights and visions of Atta, Tuohey felt another layer of guilt when he learned the ticket agent in Boston who checked in Atta and Alomari for the last leg of their flight committed suicide. Tuohey: I’m saying, my God, if I had just done the job the way I was supposed to she never would have seen these people. Oprah: But this is the thing … If you’re going to beat yourself up and be guilty about it and say, “What I could have done,” what could you have done? Tuohey: Basically nothing. Oprah: Well then… Tuohey: Yeah, I know. I know that. … But try to convince your mind.

But where’s the proof? I’ve searched Google up and down for any combination of “ticket agent” suicide, and the same terms plus atta and 9/11 and boston, to no avail. Nor is there anything at Google News. In short, there is no mention of it on the known Internets predating Oprah’s interview of Tuohey. I don’t have Nexis anymore, but if anybody out there can run the Nexis search on these terms, please let me know. [I now have a pretty good set of Nexis search results -- hundreds of articles and transcripts. More on this soon.]

I’ve been thumbing through my copy of the 9/11 Commission Report, but it’s no help in identifying who the Boston ticket agent was:

Between 6:45 and 7:40, Atta and Omari, along with Satam al Suqami, Wail al Shehri, and Waleed al Shehri, checked in and boarded American Airlines Flight 11, bound for Los Angeles. The flight was scheduled to depart at 7:45.⁴

Following that footnote, it seems the answer may lie in the “AAL response to the Commission’s supplemental document requests,” but that doesn’t seem to be on the web.

Also inconclusive but pointing toward “myth” — or urban legend — is the skepticism of commenters on the message boards at Snopes. However, by late morning on the 13th the thread had died without resolution.

For what it’s worth, Michael Tuohey’s story has been well-documented — he’s been the subject of myriad web columns, blog posts and a few CNN appearances, and until this September 12 appearance 9/11/05 appearance on Oprah, had said nothing at all about a ticket agent committing suicide. If it happened, it was not reporteed in the press at all.

A minor mystery here, at least for the moment, is when the show first aired. Oprah’s season premiere is Sept. 19 — that’s the McGreevey interview. All it would mean is that the myth had been broadcast to millions, unchecked, at least months earlier, and nobody seems to have investigated the claim. [Update: Nexis seems to indicate the show was first broadcast on 9/11/05.]

So: In the absence of independent confirmation of this story, I am left to conclude that there probably was no suicide. And of course, this raises another question: Who was the ticket agent at Boston’s Logan airport who did check Atta and al-Omari through?

P.S. So far as I can tell, only one person — anonyblogger T.S. from Martini Pundit, apparently a “a corporate whore living in Brooklyn” and former “newspaper columnist” — questioned the veracity of the story:

Chilling, yes, but also utter nonsense. If it were not, something would’ve turned up on Nexis and/or Google, I think.

And I may just be picking on the numerous bloggers who passed the story along, but hey, let’s have a look, shall we?

For example, Andrew Sullivan made it a Begala Award Nominee:

“The American Airlines ticket agent who checked in Mohammed Atta on 9/11 later committed suicide – unlike the man in charge who, being briefed on the potential threat, told his briefer, ‘Okay, you’ve covered your ass,’” – blogger Susie “Suburban Guerrilla” Madrak, linked approvingly on Eschaton. (Hat tip: Brendan.)

He might also have given it to Avedon, who followed up in a comment at Horse’s Mouth:

It breaks my heart to know that poor kid committed suicide for something that was Bush’s responsibility. You really are a jerk if you don’t get that, Brendan.

Or Steve Gilliard:

Brendan, it’s really simple: George Bush has spent five years avoiding accountability for his actions. He wants Congress to make the illegal wiretapping and torture go away. He doesn’t even want these people to sue for their maltreatment in US custody. Yet, the burden of guilt on this person was so great, they couldn’t live with it. Have you ever seen a suicide? I’ve seen three. It is an amazing thing. I don’t think most people would trivialize it.

It also duped Oprah’s fans at Television Without Pity:

That is one of those untold stories from 9/11 and it was just fascinating. I felt so bad for the guy and especially the fact that he blamed himself for the other ticket agent in Boston committing suicide.

Aside from TS, Echidne of the Snakes also asked:

My question is: Is the woman portrayed in the [ABC "Path to 9/11"] docudrama as having just waved Atta on the same one who killed herself in reality? And had her memory smeared posthumously?

Unlike most of the others, she did ask questions. Just not the right ones. [Update: As the current update situation makes clear, I can't say this for sure without further inquiry.]

Early morning update: I said I might be wrong, and indeed I might be. I’ve been forwarded a magazine article indicating that Oprah’s producer had received a message from the woman’s husband:

Oprah Winfrey, with Tuohey as her studio guest, told 20 million viewers that a woman who’d worked at American Airlines in Boston had later killed herself. Earlier, Oprah’s producer had told Tuohey she had a message from the woman’s husband: “It’s not your fault.” “When she said that,” Tuohey says, “it felt like a stone was lifted from my heart.”

But I can’t call it definitive, beause the source is still Tuohey, and there’s no indication that the producer was contacted for the magazine article. I’m certainly not going to accuse him of fabrication without knowing more, so stay tuned.

Late morning update: Alex Pareene at Wonkette has the Nexis access that I don’t, and the first report about this he finds is the UK Sunday Mirror on 9/11/05. Who’s the source? Michael Tuohey. Which settles nothing, but sure makes things more interesting.

Early afternoon update: I’ve just got my hands on the transcript of The Oprah Winfrey Show from 9/11/05. Here’s the relevant section, omitted from the Oprah.com summary:

WINFREY: Recently you learned that the woman who did the same job as you in Boston, who checked Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari in at the ticket counter committed suicide a few months ago. Mr. TOUHEY: Yeah. That was another part of the guilt, and that’s another part of the problem. I didn’t realize that until a good friend of mine–he’s been working with American Airlines for 38 years. And he says, `That girl that checked in Atta committed suicide.’ I said `What?’ He said, `Yeah, she killed herself.’ I says, `You sure?’ He says, `Of course. They’re talking about it in the airport.’ Man, that just added another layer of guilt. I’m saying to myself, `My God, if I had just done the job the way I was supposed to, she never would have seen these people and maybe, you know, been around today, you know.’ It’s just…

So he heard it from a friend. That isn’t very solid sourcing, to say the least, and there’s no indication he followed up on it. On the other hand, it does not settle the issue of whether Oprah’s producer talked to the (supposed) ticket agent’s husband. There’s more to this story yet.