'The Most Ruthless, Opportunistic Person I've Ever Encountered'

Now who is this ruthless, opportunistic person?

None other than the High Priestess of Hate herself, the vile and loathsome Arianna Huffington.

Interesting item in the New York Daily News today chronicling a long-running feud with Tim Russert and his wife Maureen Orth.

Russert and his wife, Maureen Orth, said Huffington was the one with a vendetta. They contended that her spleen was payback for a 1994 Vanity Fair exposé Orth did on her former husband, Michael Huffington. Orth also claimed in a 2004 speech that Huffington was "the most ruthless, opportunistic person I've ever encountered." As evidence, she pointed to Republican political consultant Ed Rollins' memoir, in which he claimed Huffington hired a detective to snoop on Orth.

Huffington vigorously denied that claim, but clearly, the world's best private eye wouldn't have found any love lost between her and Russert.

Speaking of the Huffington Post, today they have yet another anti-American screed from the terrorist-loving hack Andy Worthington.

Worthington latches on to a dubious McClatchy study of alleged treatment of guests at Club Gitmo. I'm not sure who has less credibility, Worthington or the floundering McClatchy crew, who note how former detainees are easy recruits for al Qaeda. Which begs the question: Wasn't it a good idea to detain them?

Mohammed Naim Farouq was a thug in the lawless Zormat district of eastern Afghanistan. He ran a kidnapping and extortion racket, and he controlled his turf with a band of gunmen who rode around in trucks with AK-47 rifles.

U.S. troops detained him in 2002, although he had no clear ties to the Taliban or al Qaida. By the time Farouq was released from Guantanamo the next year, however — after more than 12 months of what he described as abuse and humiliation at the hands of American soldiers — he'd made connections to high-level militants.

In fact, he'd become a Taliban leader. When the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency released a stack of 20 "most wanted" playing cards in 2006 identifying militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan — with Osama bin Laden at the top — Farouq was 16 cards into the deck.

Can you believe their gullibility? He had no clear ties, but does that mean he had none at all? He ran kidnapping and extortion rackets, so when we went into Afghanistan, wasn't it a good idea that we clear out guys like him?

And just when he happens to return, he manages to climb the ladder overnight to a Taliban leader?

The idiocy boggles the mind.

Update: Thanks to Hot Air for the link.

Also, a related Orth-Huffington item here.