Fellow Republican puts Gingrich in "hall of shame" over Uighur remarks

Tell us something we don't know:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich got into a public spat with fellow Republicans this week after he denounced the 17 Chinese Muslims who're being released from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military prison as "terrorists" who should be sent back to China, where they're likely to face persecution.

Gingrich, the Republican party's most prominent spokesman, is "in the Hall of Shame" for his remarks, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., said in his opening statement during a Tuesday hearing of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Human Rights. Democrats and other Republicans also piled on Gingrich for "fear-mongering" and allegedly peddling Chinese propaganda.

The Uighurs are a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority concentrated in the northwest part of China. According to the 2008 State Department Human Right's report, they've been the target of human rights abuses in China.

Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., the committee's chairman, said that Gingrich is either misinformed or intentionally circulating false information about the 17 Uighurs to "appease the Communist Chinese," who've repeatedly asked the U.S. to return the Uighurs to China. He said the Chinese "brutally persecute and oppress the Uighur minority."

And this guy's supposed to be the "intellectual" of the Republican Party? This is worse than saying Sonia Sotomayor is a racist. Either he's completely ignorant about the Uighurs or he's fear-mongering to those who are. In any case, he's a shining example of what's wrong with the Republican Party. But how ridiculous is it to look to someone who was Speaker of the House for 4 years in the 90s and left in disgrace for your future electoral hopes anyway? If that's your savior, you're in pretty sad shape.