Newt Gingrich lies to Jon Stewart, claims shoe bomber Richard Reid was U.S. citizen.

First off the bat, let me admit that I am simply a stupid limey who probably misunderstands American culture; but it does strike me that, whenever a Democrat gets elected, the American right wing almost immediately goes bat shit crazy. (That link will take you to Glenn Beck's latest insane rantings.)

But the other thing I notice about the American right during a Democratic presidency, is how little the truth appears to matter to them.

I spoke during the election of the sheer amount of untruths being perpetrated by McCain and Palin, something which Palin continues to do concerning "death panels", despite the fact that her ludicrous claim was named as "Lie of the Year". But that didn't stop her claims about death panels being held up as a positive thing when she was introduced to the Tea Party Convention. I paraphrase, but the convention was told something along the lines of "she was the first person to highlight the death panels" as if what she has stated then was true, when everyone now surely knows that not to be the case.

And here we see Newt Gingrich try to justify the fact that Richard Reid was tried in a civilian court, by stating that Richard Reid "was an American citizen".

Richard Reid was, of course, British.

Stewart: But why do you say they’re more radical?

Gingrich: Well, if you had gone to Bill Clinton and said, ‘We’ve just found this guy with his underwear burning because he tried to blow up an airplane’ --

Stewart: Wait, what? Woah. All I heard was Clinton and burning underpants – now I’m not sure what we’re talking about.

Gingrich: You’ve gotta keep focus.

Stewart: If you had gone to him and said –

Gingrich: Why don’t we make – Because he lived through Jimmy Carter’s sending prisoners to Arkansas, it helped him get beat in the 1983 election. And he understood there are certain things the American people have an aversion to, like trying to try terrorists in New York City, which is the place the terrorists tried to destroy. And that the American public doesn’t understand reading Miranda rights to terrorists in Detroit when it’s fairly obvious they’re terrorists.

Stewart: The only thing I would say to that is, didn’t they do the same with Richard Reid, who was the shoe bomber?

Gingrich: Richard Reid was an American citizen.

Gingrich either doesn't know what he is talking about or simply doesn't care.

Because the facts get in the way of this most recent Republican attempt to write Obama off as being "soft on terror" because he didn't put the Christmas Day bomber in front of a military tribunal.

I wonder how often this lie will be repeated. Because Palin's "lie of the year" regarding the "death panels" hasn't stopped some right wingers repeating it as if it were true.

Tags: Gingrich, Palin, lies