Mary Katherine Ham:
He’s down to 35 percent approval among business owners, and that was before “you didn’t build that.” We’ll see in future polls exactly how they react to Obama’s July 13th comments in Roanoke. Until then, Obama’s trying to turn this around on Mitt Romney.
Yesterday was supposed to mark the Obama campaign’s “nuclear” response to the “you didn’t build that” attacks from camp Romney, with an emphasis on milk fees in Massachusetts while Romney was governor:
If you’re the Governor that raised a fee on milk and attempted to impose a $10 fee for a state certificate of blindness, it becomes clear why Mitt Romney doesn’t want to talk about his record as Governor on jobs or the economy or budget and taxes.
While I generally object to fee hikes of all kinds, if $38 million in negative advertising on Bain in June didn’t move the needle for Obama, is this line of attack likely to?
In response to Obama’s push-back, Team Romney sent out the entire clip of Obama’s remarks, notably unmanipulated or trimmed and a list of business owners quoted in local press taking umbrage at the president’s remarks. The beauty of the gaffe for Romney’s camp is the entire passage is offensive, even without “you didn’t build that.” As such, Romney’s campaign has been using the entire passage, in context, since its first attack ad on the subject.
Jon Stewart totally destroyed the Romney campaign’s You didn’t build that misrepresentation on the Daily Show yesterday.
Democalypse 2012 – Do We Look Stupid? Don’t Answer That Edition – Grammatical Gaffes
The video is at the bottom of the page.
Whoever convinced Romney that going with this one was a good idea ought to be fired.
@Greg:
No, Greg, he didn’t. Only a fool would think that.
People can decide for themselves.
@Greg:
Obama said what he said, Greg, live with it.
And Romney’s campaign? They are playing the entire video, Greg. Hard for Stewart to “destroy” Romney’s “mischaracterization” when they play what Obama has said.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/07/15/obama-dashes-american-dream-suggests-nobody-achieves-success-alone/#ixzz21lD2bx6s
Oh and by they way, the government did not invent the internet.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444464304577539063008406518.html
@Aqua, #5:
Obama Was Right: The Government Invented the Internet.
If you want the true story from authoritative sources, try this one: A Brief History of the Internet
This is pretty funny. When he first made the comment, lefties came out defending exactly what he said and meant. Now that there has been a bunch of backlash, they are saying that’s not what he meant. Look at the tape of his speech. Not only did he say what he said and meant it, the tone in his voice was one of anger or animosity towards the people he was chastising. This guy could offer up cyanide kool aid ala Jim Jones and some people would still drink it.
What the words mean hasn’t changed from the moment Obama spoke them. What we’ve got here is a ridiculous GOP spin campaign that started wobbling and finally fell over. No number of talking heads on GOP super PAC ads are going to resuscitate the silly thing, because it was bogus to begin with.
@johngalt:
If one hunts on mittromney.com, it might take only a few minutes to find the whole C-SPAN video, all 3.58 minutes of it. Luckily for those with short attention spans, Romney helpfully edited the speech down in the more prominently featured, professionally made video that graces his “Video” page.
Here is the text of Obama’s speech in the video :
The astute amongst us might notice several sentences are missing, those that directly precede the last sentence. Those that directly inform the meaning of the last sentence. The curious are left to wonder why….. for the sake of brevity perhaps? clarify, maybe?
Here’s another new video featured on the brand new “Built by Us” page on Romney’s site. It also features a heavily, er, helpfully edited version of the speech:
You might notice how in this version, not only does Romney edit out those inconvenient parts of Obama’s speech, he goes further. He actually edits it to make it seem like “Let me tell you something”, after dramatic pause, leads directly into “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that”. You know, like Obama is really grabbing you by the figurative lapels and laying down his Marxist law in your grill.
What does Obama actually say in reality after “Let me tell you something”? He says “there are a whole lot of hardworking people out there”. Hmmmm. I guess they just couldn’t squeeze that part in.
So, John, you were telling us what now about the virtuously honesty Romney campaign?
@Tom:
Actually, Obama’s entire speech is worse than the part that Romney used. That’s what happens when the guy the Dems billed as “the smartest president evah” goes off his trusty teleprompter.
@retire05:
I agree that a hardcore Conservative would find little to like in the unedited speech, but that doesn’t explain why the Romney campaign and Fox News are pushing edited and grossly misleading versions of it. I’m curious to know why. Would you like to take a shot and explain this to us?
@retire05:
As for the tiresome “teleprompter” business, I guess we’ll find out how well he does on his own during the debates. Of course he’s debated dozens of times before, and I’d hazard a guess there are literally hundreds of hours of video of him speaking extemporaneously, but whatever makes you feel smart, you keeping saying it.
@Tom:
Don’t be an ass, Tom. I’ve never claimed Romney is honest, or not. But it is entirely asinine that Obama, and his Obamabots, are all over the print and airwaves walking back his statements. And it is extremely asinine that Greg is now spinning away at what Obama said when Greg has said the same exact thing, here on FA, in the past.
Face it. Obama said what he said. And liberal/progressives are now ashamed of it enough to attempt to “explain” it away? Give me a break.
@johngalt:
Pathetic. For those familiar with mid-80’s BASIC computer programming, this is the program the scientist who invented John programmed for questions he can’t honestly answer:
10 PRINT “Obama lie!”
20 GOTO 10
@Tom:
Pathetic? It’s pathetic that you come here seeking word brawls with nearly everyone here, except for the loony leftists.
Again, Obama said it. Live with it.
Perhaps the scientist who invented John would like to answer. Scientist who invented John, your creation stated that Romney is playing the entire video, therefore criticism to the contrary is invalid. Yet unambiguous evidence has been provided showing his campaign is quite zealously disseminating edited versions of the video, for example, in multiple campaign videos posted on his own official site. Your creation was asked to explain the discrepancy between his statement and the public record. He demurred. Would you, Scientist who invented John, like to respond in his stead?
@johngalt:
I’m starting a brawl by correcting the misinformation you’re spreading? I’d call that a public service, cleaning up after you. The version of Truth I believe in doesn’t include its opposite, even for expediency. But let’s get back to to my question. Would you like to respond to my question, John? You don’t have to, but just tell us if that’s the case.
Well, if it weren’t for the fact that the Romney campaign is, indeed, playing the entire 3:58 clip of Obie’s Roanoke speech Tom would have a point.
Since that was what John originally said was happening, and the link above shows that John was right, it has now become quite clear that Tom has no counterpoint upon which to argue.
@Aye:
I do believe I stated as much, right down to the time of the C-SPAN vid. John is more than free to take that out. It doesn’t explain his criticism of Greg or John Stewart, who are both entirely accurate that Romney is pushing ridiculously misleading edited versions of the speech.
@Greg: We can always count on BOHICAman to come to the rescue of the man of great Impotence.
@Greg: Again BOHICAman, we all know Al Gore invented the internet; he told us so.
@Tom:
What misinformation, Tom?
The Romney campaign is showing the entire video, particularly now as the Obamabots are busy walking back what Obama said.
Obama and his Obamabots were proud enough at first of his remarks that they repeated the phrasing across the net. And, as I said, Greg said similar things here at FA in the past, but is now “defending” what Obama said by saying, essentially, “that isn’t what he meant”.
Again, Obama said it. Live with it.
BTW, I’ve yet to see where I’ve claimed in this topic that “Obama lies”. Hmmm. Maybe it’s you who is spreading misinformation, Tom.
@Tom:
So, in essence, you admit that John was correct from the beginning and that you’ve spent the better part of this thread arguing against a point that you knew to be true.
Yet you refer to John’s point as “misinformation”?
Interesting.
Four Little Words
@Greg:
I have a degree in software engineering Greg, I’m more than a little familiar with the history of the Internet. DARPA definitely played a major role, primarily due to the TCP/IP protocol standards written by Cerf and Kahn. But at the same time Cerf and Kahn were working on TCP/IP, IBM was working on SNA and Honeywell was working on OSI. In addition, Ethernet was invented by Xerox. All of these, to one extent or another form the modern internet. There is also Ted Nelson, whom I don’t think can be left out of a discussion on the Internet. He received no government funding.
I will admit I screwed up citing the Crovitz article, I only skimmed it. When I went back and read it, there was quite a bit of left out or messed up. I think he started off well, basically trying to say the government is not the end-all, be-all. And I’m more than positive that even without the government or DARPA, the Internet would have happened anyway. There were thousands working on a computer network at the same time.
I doubt there are any conservatives out there that believe there should be no government involvement in research and development. NASA has quite a list of inventions that made it to the consumer market. Even so, that doesn’t take away from individual success. And that is what President Obama said,
@Aye:
John’s point is misinformation, because it’s inaccurate to point to the posting (not playing) of the full video on his site as being relevant to Stewart’s criticism, if anyone bothered to watch it. That doesn’t neutralize what Romney’s done with the speech, by a long shot.
Do you agree with John that it’s “Hard for Stewart to “destroy” Romney’s “mischaracterization” when they play what Obama has said”, despite the fact that the Romney campaign also willfully distorts what Obama said at an infinitely higher rate? Romney’s campaign has created videos mischaracterizing Obama’s words, he’s splashed the disinformation all over his website and Youtube, and he’s sent out his surrogates to further propagate the disinformation. He’s not clear and free because of a little lawyerly fine print like a C-SPAN video. To think he is is strange moral calculus. I’d opine you can tell the truth a hundreds times, but lie about me once, and you’re a liar. How do we classify Romney when he edits a speech to change its meaning and then makes that a platform of his campaign?
It’s sort of funny how the right-wing takes misrepresentations and continues to believe them. Let’s see, “if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth”. Now who said that, Josef Goebbels or Vladimir Lenin, or maybe both? I know I read the answer on this very blog, when it was being applied to Liberals/Progressives.