Newtie's "revisionist history"

Newt Gingrich, that great revisionist historian and hypocritical adulterer, has just released a new "scary" video designed to fire up the anti-immigration crowd. In the video, available on his website and posted below for your perusal, Newtie claims that Mohammed Atta and the rest of the Saudi-Arabian terrorists from the 9/11 attack were in our country illegally.

The video begins with Gingrich saying, "Mohamed Atta, and several other 9/11 hijackers were in the United States illegally." Next, photos of Atta and the other 9/11 hijackers appear and the word "Illegally", printed in bold, red letters, flashes over the screen. "Today, more than five years since that tragic day, our borders remain open to gangs, drug dealers and terrorists," says Gingrich.




However, a check of the 9/11 Commission Report reveals that Atta entered the United States on a tourist visa and the U.S. subsequently approved him for a student visa on July 17, 2001 that was good through October 1, 2001.

"Atta was in the country legally on 9/11," confirmed Janice Kephart, a former counsel to the 9/11 Commission and co-author of the commission's report on 9/11 and Terrorist Travel to ABC News. "Atta was now legally in the United States until the day of the planned attack," reads the commission's report on 9/11 and terrorist travel on page 36.

In fact, all of the 19 men who hijacked planes on September 11th, including Atta, entered the United States on a tourist, or student visa, issued by the former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. And Atta's visa status was widely reported in the media in 2002 when the INS famously sent a letter to Atta's Florida flight school, which was received on the sixth month anniversary of 9/11. The letter said the INS had approved a request to change Atta's status from a tourist visa to a student visa weeks before the attacks.

Citizens United, a conservative group lobbying against the immigration bill, paid for the ad and says they have purchased a "six-figure" media buy for the ad to appear on cable television. Do drop by and give them some "love". . .