Republicans often criticize President Obama for not hewing exactly to advice from top military leaders (a criticism those military leaders find “offensive“). But when it has suited their agendas, those very same Republicans have themselves not shied away from publicly disagreeing with top uniformed military officials.

In September, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) joined colleagues to criticize Obama for failing to offer a plan for Iraq that “reflects the best military advice of U.S. commanders.”

But Graham isn’t always so willing to listen to top American military officials. Last week the South Carolina Republican disagreed publicly with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s assessment that Iran hasn’t decided on whether it will build a nuclear bomb.

This weekend on CNN, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey spoke out against an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the immediate future and added that the pressure and diplomacy tracks should be pursued because the Joint Chiefs “are of the opinion that the Iranian regime is a rational actor.” Once again, Graham shot back, saying yesterday on CNN that he disagreed with the top U.S. military officer:

GRAHAM: But you know, General Dempsey is a fine man. But when he said that he thought the Iranians were rational actors, I just want to go on record. I don’t think it’s rational for a country to try to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador in a restaurant in Washington.

I don’t see what Iran is doing is being rational. I see it as being dangerous and so that’s why we need to make sure Syria ends well.

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The alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington indeed represents a threat — one Clapper outlined. But Graham is missing the larger picture. Last month, Clapper said in his congressional testimony that Iran’s decision — yet unmade, according to reliable media organizations, U.N. agencies and reported U.S. intelligence estimates — to build a nuclear weapon or not “would be based on a cost-benefit analysis.” Clapper went on to give several examples of factors that could influence this cost-benefit analysis, such as economic and diplomatic pressure.

While Republican politicians should be free to criticize opinions expressed by military officers, they ought to cut out the hypocrisy of insisting on Obama’s fealty to military advice when jettisoning the officers’ opinions on topics where they disagree with the brass.

Over the past week, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that the Iranians have “not decided that they will embark on the [...] effort to weaponize their nuclear capability.” Both Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that Iran had not yet decided to develop a nuclear weapon.

But the analysis of America’s top military officer, the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence just isn’t good enough for Christian Whiton, the Deputy Director of National Security Staff at the Newt Gingrich presidential campaign. Appearing on Fox News yesterday, Whiton falsely claimed that an International Atomic Energy Agency report from last November “says Iran is working on a nuclear weapons program,” adding that the administration “need[s] to start telling the truth about the threat [from Iran]“:

WHITON: The most important thing we need to do is start telling the truth about the threat. For Leon Panetta, the defense secretary, to go up to Congress last week and say that we know they’re working on an energy program and a uranium program but not necessarily a nuclear weapons program, that’s just wrong. The IAEA has said that is wrong. The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that said Iran had halted its program was wrong, has been disproved. It is now viewed as misleading and politicized. So step one is telling the truth.”

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But Whiton never got to “step one” himself. In fact, while the November IAEA report did express concerns about possible military dimensions to Iran’s program, it did not assert that Iran “is working on a nuclear weapons program.” Indeed, no further reports from U.S. intelligence services or the IAEA have asserted that Iran has restarted its nuclear weapons program.

The development of dual-military-civilian use technologies raises serious questions about Iran’s nuclear program, but no verifiable evidence has yet been produced to show that the Islamic Republic is actively pursuing a nuclear weapon. While Clapper said Iranians are “keeping themselves in a position to make that decision,” he also said that Iran is susceptible to sanctions and diplomacy. “We judge Iran’s nuclear decisionmaking is guided by a cost-benefit approach, which offers the international community opportunities to influence Tehran,” he said last week

Whiton, who last made headlines after the July, 2011 terrorist attack in Norway by claiming that European countries are susceptible to terrorism because they’re “neutral on the war on terror,” might want to check his facts before accusing the Secretary of Defense of lying to Congress.

Womens’ veterans groups and media figures widely criticized Fox News pundit Liz Trotta last week for claiming that women service members should “expect” sexual assault and complaining about levels of bureaucracy that support women who have been “raped too much.” Trotta was reacting to and complaining about a recent Pentagon decision to relax rules on women serving in combat roles.

This weekend on Fox News, Trotta tried clarify what she meant, saying that she’s concerned about “the hardline feminists” trying “to force the Pentagon to lift the ban on women in combat.” She added that, “Accordingly, the political correctness infecting the Pentagon has resulted in silly and dishonest fairy tales about female heroism.”

But instead of offering any regret for saying women in the military should expect sexual assault, she dug in a bit further, seeming to agree with the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer that women should not serve in combat at all because they’re, well, women:

TROTTA: The military is not a social services operation, or a testing ground for gender wars. It is a fighting machine. Women are not as strong as men. Their instincts and reactions in crises are markedly different. There’s a reality the left will not face: biology is not destiny.

Mediaite has the video:

Raw Story points out that President Obama recently nominated the second female ever to serve as a four star general and that according to a Congressional Research Service report last year, the military has recognized women service members for heroism in combat. “In 10 years of combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, thousands of female members have been deployed, and hundreds wounded and/or killed,” the report says. “On numerous occasions women have been recognized for their heroism, two earning Silver Star medals.”

GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s press secretary Alice Stewart came under fire yesterday for her comments accusing President Barack Obama of having “radical Islamic policies.” Stewart said Santorum was referring to these policies when he said the president’s environmental agenda was driven by “phony ideology.” Stewart told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell:

STEWART: There is a type of theological secularism when it comes to the global warmists in this country. That’s what [Santorum] was referring to. He was referring to the president’s policies in terms of the radical Islamic policies the president has, specifically in terms of the energy exploration.

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Mitchell later reported that Stewart had phoned MSNBC to correct her statement. “I was referring to Obama’s radical environmental policies and on one reference, I accidentally said radical ‘Islamic’ policies,” Stewart wrote in an email to Fox News. “I misspoke and I regret it.”

While Stewart’s comments may have, as she suggests, been an unfortunate slip up, the Santorum campaign is developing a track-record of suggesting that Obama’s policies are driven by nefarious motives. Earlier this month, Santorum accused Obama of “throwing Israel under the bus” and allowing Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon in exchange for access to their oil.