Newt Gingrich Continues To Struggle With The Facts

We noted yesterday that during a Daily Show appearance on January 9, 2010, former Speaker Newt Gingrich criticized the Obama administration for reading Miranda rights to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the underwear bomber.  Rejecting comparisons to the Bush administration's handling of the shoe bomber, Gingrich falsely claimed Richard Reid was an American citizen.  In reality, he was a British citizen.

After Gingrich realized he had become an object of online ridicule for his mistake, he took to Twitter to set the record straight: "On daily show was wrong re: ShoeBomber citizenship, was thinking of Padilla. Treating terrorists like criminals wrong no matter who is Pres."

In his attempt to correct his mistake, Gingrich ended up revealing just how uninformed he is in regards to terrorism and homeland security.

As Greg Sargent noted: "If it's true that Gingrich confused Reid and Padilla, that's a pretty colossal blunder. The shoe bomber was Mirandized within the first five minutes of his detention. Padilla, by contrast, was held as an enemy combattant for three and a half years before being convicted in civilian courts."

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder also pointed out that Gingrich's attempt to use Padilla's case to make is point is way off base.  Ambinder wrote:

Padilla was captured and not Mirandized. He was subject to harsh interrogation techniques.  That, ostensibly, was Gingrich's point. But -- and this is a very simple rejoinder -- Padilla DID NOT talk when he was held incommunicado.

Mirandizing him either would not have made a difference -- OR perhaps a more hospitable interrogation might have helped to loosen his lips early on.

So Gingrich's reference -- his proof that the Bush administration used a different practice and that it worked -- is so far removed from the point that he is trying to make that it is, to quote Wolfgang Pauli, not even wrong.

Steve Benen summed it up nicely: "[A]fter a couple of weeks of truly ridiculous political attacks surrounding the Abdulmutallab case, I have no idea what any of the Republican rhetoric on this means. Gingrich, by all appearances, is both clueless and dishonest -- not a good combination -- but he seems no different at this point than his GOP cohorts."

It seems Mr. Gingrich should stick to writing books about wars that have already ended. Because after this week's series of disastrous blunders, it's clear that Newt Gingrich has no business giving advice on how to defeat terrorists.