It came as a big - and pleasant - surprise to me. In a chance conversation with a complete stranger at the car wash, I screwed up my courage and dared to say it.

"You know ... our own government was behind 9/11!" I held my breath. My eyebrows scrunched up in anticipation of some mindwashed backlash of preprogrammed patriotic outrage.

The guy turned slowly and looked me squarely in the eye. "I know," he said, his furrowed brow mirroring all the painful pathos that has hogtied all the hearts in America these past three years. I breathed a big sigh of relief. And then I pushed the envelope.

"And you know ... all those people dead in Iraq - thousands of Americans and a hundred thousand Iraqis - all because of lies." The old guy tugged on his frayed plaid cap and wheezed.

"I know," he repeated, shuffling his feet, his body involuntarily twitching from the realization of his long-suppressed acknowledgement.

As he left I handed him a copy of my booklet, "The Day America Died," and said, "Here's a basic overview of that terrible day.