But, Newt, Padilla Didn't Talk

Newt Gingrich has Tweeted that when he referred to the case of British citizen Richard Reid on the Daily Show last night, he meant to refer to Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen who was captured by federal authorities and turned over to the military and held by the U.S. Navy for years. 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.