“This week one thing became abundantly clear: Media conservatives want to talk about torture — well, not really; they want to blame House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for failing to stop the Bush administration’s torture policies. You know, the policies conservatives contend worked great to keep us safe. Have trouble following their logic? That’s sort of the point — a shell game is designed to confuse the audience, forcing members of it to select the wrong shell and lose whatever money they’ve thrown on the table. There’s little difference between that curbside gambling and what we’re seeing now from conservatives.”
— Karl Frisch, “The Right’s Tortured Shell Game,” Media Matters, May 15, 2009.

Define mountebanks.