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<img src="http://upload.democraticunderground.com/top10/09/365.jpg" border="0"><br /><br /><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="4"><b>The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 365</b></font><br /><br />May 25, 2009<br /><i>Lie Of Newt Edition</i><br /><br />Just when you thought you'd seen the last of them, Newt Gingrich (1) and Dick Cheney (2) rear their ugly heads. Elsewhere, Michael Steele (3) and The RNC (4,5) plan a big comeback. Don't forget the <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/key.html" target="_blank">key</a>!<br /><br /><img src="http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/number/01.gif" border="0" alt="" title=""><br /><br /><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="4"><b>Newt Gingrich</b></font> <img src="http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/icons/hypocrisy.gif" border="0" alt="hypocrisy" title="hypocrisy"> <br /><br />Last week Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi asserted that the CIA lied to her when she was the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee in 2002, telling her that suspected terrorists had not been waterboarded. The CIA misleading people? Imagine that.<br /><br />Of course it didn't take long for Republicans to explode in a frenzy of fauxtrage, and <a href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/05/gingrich-pelosi.html" target="_blank">leading the way</a> was former Speaker Newt Gingrich.<br /><br /><div class="excerpt">"I think she has lied to the House, and I think that the House has an absolute obligation to open an inquiry, and I hope there will be a resolution to investigate her. And I think this is a big deal. I don't think the Speaker of the House can lie to the country on national security matters," Gingrich said.<br /><br />He continued: "I think this is the most despicable, dishonest and vicious political effort I've seen in my lifetime."</div><br />Well he would know about that sort of thing. Anyway, it turns out that Nancy Pelosi isn't the only high-ranking politician who has ever strongly criticized a government agency. Take, for example, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. <a href="http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2009/05/when-newt-gingrich-was-condemning-fbi.html" target="_blank">According to</a> The Rude Pundit:<br /><br /><div class="Excerpt">Indeed, Gingrich not only held up an anti-terror bill President Bill Clinton wanted in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, but he also said on Meet the Press in May 1995, "We have to understand that there is, in rural America, a genuine -- particularly in the West -- a genuine fear of the Federal Government and of Washington, D.C., as a place that doesn't understand their way of life and doesn't understand their values." Gingrich pointed directly to actions by the FBI as to why such "fear" existed. And he supported hearings on what happened at Waco, two years after the fact.<br /><br />In other words, titanic asshole Newt Gingrich thinks that if Nancy Pelosi says the CIA misleads Congress, it doesn't mean that there should be hearings into the substance of what she's alleging. It means she should resign as Speaker of the House. But when he was Speaker of the House and saying to the media that the FBI was incompetent and a threat to Americans, it didn't mean he was undermining the FBI agents' morale and he should resign. No, then it meant that Congress ought to investigate.</div><br />But let's be fair - Newt was criticizing the FBI, not the CIA. Which probably makes it not as bad or something. Now if he had been caught on tape, say, accusing the entire intelligence community of treason, that would probably be a big story.<br /><br />Wait, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQBZZUSfsr4" target="_blank">what's this</a>?<br /><br /><div class="excerpt"><b>NEWT GINGRICH AT CPAC 2008:</b> The National Intelligence Estimate on Iran can only be understood as a bureaucratic coup d'état, deliberately designed to undermine the policies of the United States. (applause)</div><br />So just to clarify... when Nancy Pelosi says the CIA lied to her during a briefing in 2002, it's "the most despicable, dishonest and vicious political effort" of all time. But when Newt Gingrich accuses the entire intelligence community of deliberately undermining the policies of the United States, he gets a standing ovation.<br /><br />Funny how that works.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/number/02.gif" border="0" alt="" title=""><br /><br /><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="4"><b>Dick Cheney</b></font> <img src="http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/icons/lying.gif" border="0" alt="lying" title="lying"> <img src="http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/icons/coveringass.gif" border="0" alt="covering your ass" title="covering your ass"><br /><br />For someone who spent the past eight years doing everything he could to avoid being seen in public, former vice president Dick Cheney has sure been out and about a lot lately. Last week he wheezed his way through a speech to the American Enterprise Institute, which, <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/68643.html" target="_blank">according to</a> McClatchy Newspapers, "ignored some inconvenient truths."<br /><br />Exhibit A:<br /><br /><div class="Excerpt">He quoted the Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, as saying that the information (from waterboarding) gave U.S. officials a "deeper understanding of the al Qaida organization that was attacking this country."<br /><br />In a statement April 21, however, Blair said the information "was valuable in some instances" but that "there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is that these techniques hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."</div><br />Exhibit B:<br /><br /><div class="Excerpt">Cheney said that President Barack Obama's decision to release the four top-secret Bush administration memos on the interrogation techniques was "flatly contrary" to U.S. national security, and would help al Qaida train terrorists in how to resist U.S. interrogations.<br /><br />However, Blair, who oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, said in his statement that he recommended the release of the memos, "strongly supported" Obama's decision to prohibit using the controversial methods and that "we do not need these techniques to keep America safe."</div><br />Exhibit C:<br /><br /><div class="Excerpt">Cheney denied that there was any connection between the Bush administration's interrogation policies and the abuse of detainee at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, which he blamed on "a few sadistic guards . . . in violation of American law, military regulations and simple decency."<br /><br />However, a bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee report in December traced the abuses at Abu Ghraib to the approval of the techniques by senior Bush administration officials, including former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.</div><br />Exhibit D:<br /><br /><div class="Excerpt">Cheney said that "only detainees of the highest intelligence value" were subjected to the harsh interrogation techniques, and he cited Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the alleged mastermind of the 9-11 attacks.<br /><br />He didn't mention Abu Zubaydah, the first senior al Qaida operative to be captured after 9-11. Former FBI special agent Ali Soufan told a Senate subcommittee last week that his interrogation of Zubaydah using traditional methods elicited crucial information, including Mohammed's alleged role in 9-11.<br /><br />The decision to use the harsh interrogation methods "was one of the worst and most harmful decisions made in our efforts against al Qaida," Soufan said.</div><br />And that's not even half of it - you really should go <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/68643.html" target="_blank">read the whole thing for yourself</a>.<br /><br />So how did our esteemed news agencies treat this unfortunate spectacle? <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/200905220007" target="_blank">According to</a> Media Matters:<br /><br /><div class="excerpt">In May 21 reports on former Vice President Dick Cheney's speech that day at the American Enterprise Institute, the CBS Evening News, Fox News' Special Report, CNN's The Situation Room, and ABC's World News all uncritically aired discredited claims Cheney made suggesting that detainees provided information after "enhanced interrogation techniques" were used, and had not provided it before being subjected to those methods. As Media Matters for America has noted, former FBI agent Ali Soufan -- who interrogated Abu Zubaydah -- testified before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on May 13 about the success of standard interrogation methods, which he contrasted with "ineffective" harsh techniques.<br /><br />The CBS Evening News and The Situation Room uncritically aired Cheney's claim of harsh interrogation techniques used during the Bush administration: "The interrogations were used on hardened terrorists after other efforts had failed."</div><br />Way to go, "liberal media."<br />
<img src="http://upload.democraticunderground.com/top10/09/365.jpg" border="0"><br /><br /><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="4"><b>The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 365</b></font><br /><br />May 25, 2009<br /><i>Lie Of Newt Edition</i><br /><br />Just when you thought you'd seen the last of them, Newt Gingrich (1) and Dick Cheney (2) rear their ugly heads. Elsewhere, Michael Steele (3) and The RNC (4,5) plan a big comeback. Don't forget the <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/key.html" target="_blank">key</a>!<br /><br /><img src="http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/number/01.gif" border="0" alt="" title=""><br /><br /><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="4"><b>Newt Gingrich</b></font> <img src="http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/icons/hypocrisy.gif" border="0" alt="hypocrisy" title="hypocrisy"> <br /><br />Last week Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi asserted that the CIA lied to her when she was the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee in 2002, telling her that suspected terrorists had not been waterboarded. The CIA misleading people? Imagine that.<br /><br />Of course it didn't take long for Republicans to explode in a frenzy of fauxtrage, and <a href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/05/gingrich-pelosi.html" target="_blank">leading the way</a> was former Speaker Newt Gingrich.<br /><br /><div class="excerpt">"I think she has lied to the House, and I think that the House has an absolute obligation to open an inquiry, and I hope there will be a resolution to investigate her. And I think this is a big deal. I don't think the Speaker of the House can lie to the country on national security matters," Gingrich said.<br /><br />He continued: "I think this is the most despicable, dishonest and vicious political effort I've seen in my lifetime."</div><br />Well he would know about that sort of thing. Anyway, it turns out that Nancy Pelosi isn't the only high-ranking politician who has ever strongly criticized a government agency. Take, for example, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. <a href="http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2009/05/when-newt-gingrich-was-condemning-fbi.html" target="_blank">According to</a> The Rude Pundit:<br /><br /><div class="Excerpt">Indeed, Gingrich not only held up an anti-terror bill President Bill Clinton wanted in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, but he also said on Meet the Press in May 1995, "We have to understand that there is, in rural America, a genuine -- particularly in the West -- a genuine fear of the Federal Government and of Washington, D.C., as a place that doesn't understand their way of life and doesn't understand their values." Gingrich pointed directly to actions by the FBI as to why such "fear" existed. And he supported hearings on what happened at Waco, two years after the fact.<br /><br />In other words, titanic asshole Newt Gingrich thinks that if Nancy Pelosi says the CIA misleads Congress, it doesn't mean that there should be hearings into the substance of what she's alleging. It means she should resign as Speaker of the House. But when he was Speaker of the House and saying to the media that the FBI was incompetent and a threat to Americans, it didn't mean he was undermining the FBI agents' morale and he should resign. No, then it meant that Congress ought to investigate.</div><br />But let's be fair - Newt was criticizing the FBI, not the CIA. Which probably makes it not as bad or something. Now if he had been caught on tape, say, accusing the entire intelligence community of treason, that would probably be a big story.<br /><br />Wait, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQBZZUSfsr4" target="_blank">what's this</a>?<br /><br /><div class="excerpt"><b>NEWT GINGRICH AT CPAC 2008:</b> The National Intelligence Estimate on Iran can only be understood as a bureaucratic coup d'état, deliberately designed to undermine the policies of the United States. (applause)</div><br />So just to clarify... when Nancy Pelosi says the CIA lied to her during a briefing in 2002, it's "the most despicable, dishonest and vicious political effort" of all time. But when Newt Gingrich accuses the entire intelligence community of deliberately undermining the policies of the United States, he gets a standing ovation.<br /><br />Funny how that works.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/number/02.gif" border="0" alt="" title=""><br /><br /><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="4"><b>Dick Cheney</b></font> <img src="http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/icons/lying.gif" border="0" alt="lying" title="lying"> <img src="http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/icons/coveringass.gif" border="0" alt="covering your ass" title="covering your ass"><br /><br />For someone who spent the past eight years doing everything he could to avoid being seen in public, former vice president Dick Cheney has sure been out and about a lot lately. Last week he wheezed his way through a speech to the American Enterprise Institute, which, <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/68643.html" target="_blank">according to</a> McClatchy Newspapers, "ignored some inconvenient truths."<br /><br />Exhibit A:<br /><br /><div class="Excerpt">He quoted the Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, as saying that the information (from waterboarding) gave U.S. officials a "deeper understanding of the al Qaida organization that was attacking this country."<br /><br />In a statement April 21, however, Blair said the information "was valuable in some instances" but that "there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is that these techniques hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."</div><br />Exhibit B:<br /><br /><div class="Excerpt">Cheney said that President Barack Obama's decision to release the four top-secret Bush administration memos on the interrogation techniques was "flatly contrary" to U.S. national security, and would help al Qaida train terrorists in how to resist U.S. interrogations.<br /><br />However, Blair, who oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, said in his statement that he recommended the release of the memos, "strongly supported" Obama's decision to prohibit using the controversial methods and that "we do not need these techniques to keep America safe."</div><br />Exhibit C:<br /><br /><div class="Excerpt">Cheney denied that there was any connection between the Bush administration's interrogation policies and the abuse of detainee at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, which he blamed on "a few sadistic guards . . . in violation of American law, military regulations and simple decency."<br /><br />However, a bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee report in December traced the abuses at Abu Ghraib to the approval of the techniques by senior Bush administration officials, including former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.</div><br />Exhibit D:<br /><br /><div class="Excerpt">Cheney said that "only detainees of the highest intelligence value" were subjected to the harsh interrogation techniques, and he cited Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the alleged mastermind of the 9-11 attacks.<br /><br />He didn't mention Abu Zubaydah, the first senior al Qaida operative to be captured after 9-11. Former FBI special agent Ali Soufan told a Senate subcommittee last week that his interrogation of Zubaydah using traditional methods elicited crucial information, including Mohammed's alleged role in 9-11.<br /><br />The decision to use the harsh interrogation methods "was one of the worst and most harmful decisions made in our efforts against al Qaida," Soufan said.</div><br />And that's not even half of it - you really should go <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/68643.html" target="_blank">read the whole thing for yourself</a>.<br /><br />So how did our esteemed news agencies treat this unfortunate spectacle? <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/200905220007" target="_blank">According to</a> Media Matters:<br /><br /><div class="excerpt">In May 21 reports on former Vice President Dick Cheney's speech that day at the American Enterprise Institute, the CBS Evening News, Fox News' Special Report, CNN's The Situation Room, and ABC's World News all uncritically aired discredited claims Cheney made suggesting that detainees provided information after "enhanced interrogation techniques" were used, and had not provided it before being subjected to those methods. As Media Matters for America has noted, former FBI agent Ali Soufan -- who interrogated Abu Zubaydah -- testified before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on May 13 about the success of standard interrogation methods, which he contrasted with "ineffective" harsh techniques.<br /><br />The CBS Evening News and The Situation Room uncritically aired Cheney's claim of harsh interrogation techniques used during the Bush administration: "The interrogations were used on hardened terrorists after other efforts had failed."</div><br />Way to go, "liberal media."<br />
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