Newt Gingrich made an appearance on Meet The Press this morning, and like a good GOPer, he spun tall tales.
transcript
MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask you if your reaction to stories in the papers about an investigation of the Pentagon and also questions have been raised about the Defense Policy Board on on which you serve. The office of Douglas Feith and others are--there's questions being asked about secrets that may have left that particular office or the Defense Policy Board and been given to APAC, a lobbying group allied with Israel.
MR. GINGRICH: I think that it is very worrisome that some security people, whether they're at the CIA or the FBI, are trying to destroy careers by leaking to the press allegations that are untrue. You may have just noticed, by the way, that Ahmed Chalabi, after a six-month campaign by Ambassador Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority, Ahmed Chalabi was just cleared, something which didn't get quite the same coverage as all of the vicious and dishonest charges.
SPIN #1-He says the investigation is a smear, when it's much more likely the leak came from someone trying to screw up the investigation.
SPIN #2-He claims Chalabi has been cleared, while discussing the spies in the Pentagon. This implies Chalabi has been cleared of leaking the info that the US knew how to listen in on Iranian messages and destroying that capability. But that's not even close to being the truth. What Gingrich is talking about was in the NYTimes
He [Chalabi] also said the judge had dismissed the counterfeiting charges against him.
In the interview, Mr. Maliky was less conclusive, however, saying that Mr. Chalabi had yet to be cleared.
So Newty believes what the serial liar, Chalabi has to say. And we should care what Newty thinks because, why? How does this has been get on tv at all?
And it must be cold day in hell, because I agree with Pat Buchanan on something!
MR. RUSSERT: They are not attacking us because they hate us and hate our culture?
MR. BUCHANAN: This is the fundamental point. Are they attacking us because of who we are and what they believe or are they attacking us because of what we do? I believe it is our policies, not our principles that are causing these attacks. Osama bin Laden wasn't sitting in some cave in Afghanistan and stumble on the Bill of Rights and go bananas. It is because of what we are doing. Most fundamentally, it wasn't Israel number one. Number one, Saudi Arabia, female soldiers, American soldiers sitting there on the land of Mecca and Medina.
He's the first one I've seen say that on TV. Randi Rhodes has said it many times on her show (Air America).