Things Newt Gingrich (Maybe) Never Said

I came across this quotation allegedly by Newt Gingrich today:

“I am not so shocked that Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize without any accomplishments to his name, but that America gave him the White House based on the same credentials.”

Hah, hah. It’s funny cuz it’s true, etc. etc. That’s not really my point.

My point is that I cannot for the life of me find any source cited for the quotation, even though it’s easy to find it repeated all over the Internet. It’s always attributed to Newt, but never linked to any source. This lack of sourcing is pretty unusual for a modern quotation in Internetland. And that bugs me.

So I’ve done a little more digging and it looks like I may have found the original source of the quote. Emphasis on the “may” here.

It shows up as the final comment in a humorous opinion piece written shortly after Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize award was announced, published in that well-known journal so influential among the nation’s elite: The Destin Log, serving the greater Destin, Florida community.  Is it possible our quotable latter day Oscar Wilde in this case was not Newt Gingrich, but rather a commenter called “Scottie”?

As an American I am not so shocked that Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize without any accomplishments to his name, but that America gave him the White House based on the same credentials.
Scottie – Oct 23, 2009 07:45:58 PM

Is “Scottie”‘s comment the real source of this quote, which was then misattributed to Newt Gingrich much like so many famous quotations are misattributed to Winston Churchill simply because he’s well known for pithy quotes of the sort? Did it spread far and wide with this misattribution because people are far more likely to pass along what Newt Gingrich said as opposed to what they read from some anonymous Internet commenter? I’m not sure. But I can’t seem to find any earlier citations of the quote, attributed to Newt or not. I find a whole bunch attributed to Newt later than that date, but so far none earlier.  Also the tone of this quote doesn’t even come close to matching the tone Gingrich was setting regarding this very topic around the same time.

To elevate this OCD-like curiosity to the level of amateur journalism, I’ve e-mailed Newt Gingrich’s spokesperson and press secretary, Rick Tyler, asking for confirmation and sourcing of the quote. If he responds, I’ll be sure to relate the answer here.

“Scottie” is sadly anonymous, and therefore unreachable for comment. But if anyone else out there has more info on this to satisfy my curiosity please chime in below.

One thought on “Things Newt Gingrich (Maybe) Never Said

  1. “To elevate this OCD-like curiosity to the level of amateur journalism, I’ve e-mailed Newt Gingrich’s spokesperson and press secretary, Rick Tyler, asking for confirmation and sourcing of the quote. If he responds, I’ll be sure to relate the answer here.”

    Fantastic! Well done!

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