Republican strategist Ron Christie is mincing no words in his opinion of National Security Advisor Susan Rice, who's under fire for saying freed Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl served with honor, when he may have been a deserter.
"I think
Susan Rice to put it bluntly is a liar. I think that she is lying when she says that this individual served with distinction and honor,'' Christie, a columnist for The Daily Beast, told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.
"This is a guy who actually said to himself, 'I don't want to be an American soldier anymore. I think the American soldiers are liars.' ...
"He made sure to walk off that base so that he didn't have to be in the United States army anymore. That's not honorable. That's not serving with distinction. What that is in my view is being a traitor.''
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Last week, the Obama administration traded five high-ranking Taliban terrorists for Bergdahl, whose military record has since been questioned. Compounding the controversy is the fact that six soldiers were killed in the search for him after he left the base.
"The fact that we lost at least six people who went out looking for him — six people whose mothers and fathers, sons and brothers, won't see those soldiers come home,'' Christie said.
"The national security advisor who actually signed off on this deal with this president and says this is honorable, it's a disgrace.''
The comments of Christie, a onetime staffer of Vice President Dick Cheney, came during a Newsmax panel discussion with C. Edmund Wright, a columnist for Breitbart.com and American Thinker.
Wright said Rice's controversial remarks about Bergdahl's honor on an ABC News show last Sunday reminded him of her stint as U.S. Ambassador to the UN, when she wrongly blamed the Benghazi attack on an anti-Islamic video.
"Susan Rice has had two absurd appearances on the Sunday shows. It was the Benghazi video appearance and then this one,'' Wright said.
"And then, the liberals had the audacity to call [former Secretary of State] Condi Rice a Stepin Fetchit for just carrying that administration's water?
"I'm sorry, Susan Rice, she's going to go down as one of the most discredited spokespersons in history. It's astonishing what she has said twice now.''
Christie said the terrorist swap shows major distinctions between the Obama administration and that of George W. Bush.
Here’s the real difference.... President Bush, in our White House, actually had people who served in the military serving as the president's senior advisors,'' he said.
"It's all about politics for [the current administration]. They don't understand the creed of duty, honor, country, when it comes to our folks in the military.''
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