A (SEMI-)CHARITABLE INTERPRETATION OF WHAT GINGRICH SAID

In case you missed it:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart....

After Gingrich assailed the administration for reading Miranda Rights to Detroit undie bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Stewart drew a comparison to something that happened under George W. Bush.

"Didn't they do the same with Richard Reid, who was the shoe bomber?" he asked the Republican icon.

"Richard Reid was an American citizen," insisted Gingrich.

Reid is actually a British citizen of Jamaican descent....

The sensible conclusion is that Gingrich was just shamelessly lying. But I'll offer a more charitable explanation -- though it's not all that charitable.

It seems conceivable that Gingrich vaguely remembered that Reid was a citizen of a "white" country -- you know, a "civilized" country. Not a country actually run by olive-skinned guys with scary facial hair and big noses and weird robes and headgear. Reid has darkish skin, but he doesn't look like, um, one of them. And he has a name that's not like, say, Abdulhassan al-Mumbojumbo. His name is, y'know, normal.

So maybe, in the part of his brain where Gingrich stored his memoris of Reid, that really does add up to "American."

Well, I said it wasn't really all that charitable....