Gingrich: Clinton’s DNC speech ‘actually a condemnation’ of Obama

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Former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich on Sunday asserted that former President Bill Clinton’s Democratic National Convention speech highlighting Barack Obama’s accomplishments was “actually a condemnation” of the current president.

“I actually thought parts of the Clinton speech were eerily anti-Obama,” Gingrich told Candy Crowley during an interview on CNN. “I mean, here’s Clinton saying, ‘I reformed welfare because I worked with Republicans, you didn’t, Mr. Obama.’ Think about it. ‘I had the longest period of economic growth in history, you didn’t, Mr. Obama. I got to four balanced budgets by working with Republicans, you didn’t, Mr. Obama.’”

“You can take his speech, spin it not very much, and it’s actually a condemnation of the fact that Obama learned nothing — and Bob Woodward’s new book indicates he learned nothing — out of the 2010 election,” the former House Speaker explained, adding that Obama’s bounce in the polls after the Democratic Convention was “80 percent Bill Clinton.”

“Clinton is a very popular figure for a very practical reason: the economy worked,” Gingrich noted. “You know, you look back on that and you think — I think what it actually does is it shrinks Obama. I mean, you have a real president and then you have this guy who’s a pretender.”

Watch this video from CNN’s State of the Union via Talking Points Memo, broadcast Sept. 9, 2012.