Newt Gingrich Backtracks After Stupidly Complaining About Something Obama Didn’t Say

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Former Speaker of the House and current conservative pundit Newt Gingrich took to Twitter Tuesday morning to whine about President Obama’s statement about the airstrikes against ISIS that took place in Syria Monday night and early Tuesday. Apparently, Gingrich didn’t watch the speech live and/or listen to what POTUS actually had to say. Instead, Gingrich based his righteous indignation on a transcript that C-SPAN posted to their website alongside the video. The transcript is from the closed captioning feed and C-SPAN points out that the text has not been proofread or corrected.

Gingrich, who now toils for CNN as one of the rotating hosts on their political blabfest Crossfire, sent out two tweets roughly 20 minutes after Obama made his statement to the press regarding the airstrikes. He took issue with what he thought was the President using the word ‘courtesy’ to refer to the combat missions.

It appears that somebody got a hold of Gingrich after he sent those tweets and let him know that President Obama said no such thing. Less than 20 minutes after he sent out the two tweets, Gingrich followed up with a correction blaming C-SPAN for his error.

What the President actually said in his prepared remarks regarding the combat mission is as follows:

Good morning, everybody. Last night, on my orders, America’s armed forces began strikes against ISIL targets in Syria. Today, the American people give thanks for the extraordinary service of our men and women in uniform, including the pilots who flew these missions with the courage and professionalism that we’ve come to expect from the finest military that the world has ever known.

In fact, the White House released the President’s statement to the press and posted it to the White House’s website. You’d think that Gingrich, being a member of the mainstream media, would have had access to this statement. Or, considering he’d possibly be commenting on it later, because that is his job, he would have at least taken the time to watch the President speak live. If he happened to miss it, and never read the official transcript released by the White House, you’d think he’d perhaps watch the video with the sound on and pay attention to what President Obama actually said.

Nope. That isn’t how Gingrich rolls, apparently. Instead, he moseyed over to C-SPAN after the President was done making his speech and just read an uncorrected transcript without bothering to watch or listen to the video. And, having read those remarks that were accompanied by a disclaimer saying they weren’t proofread, Gingrich decided to blast the President on Twitter. Of course, karma came back to bite him, and he sheepishly had to apologize (sort of) for being incredibly wrong. Then again, that is kind of how Gingrich goes through life.

H/T Talking Points Memo

Justin Baragona

Justin Baragona is the Managing Editor at Politicus Sports as well as Senior Editor at PoliticusUSA. He was a political writer for 411Mania.com before joining PoliticusUSA. Politically, Justin considers himself a liberal but also a realist and pragmatist. Currently, Justin lives in St. Louis, MO and is married. Besides writing, he also runs his own business after spending a number of years in the corporate world. You can follow Justin on Twitter either with his personal handle (@justinbaragona) or the Sports site’s (@PoliticusSports).