Quote Me as Saying I Was Misquoted
“Obama Ad Accuses Romney of ‘Launching a False Attack’ for Quoting Obama,” Daniel Halper writes at the Weekly Standard:
Nevertheless, the Obama campaign, in the ad, says it’s not true. “The only problem?,” the ad text reads. “That’s not what he said.” It then turns to Obama, from the same Roanoke campaign speech, who said, “If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.”
Which is true. Obama did say that. But he also said the line that Romney says he said — “If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”
And, in fact, later in the ad the Obama campaign actually plays the clip that Romney quotes of Obama, at about :40 second spot.
“Mitt Romney will say anything,” the ad concludes. It turns out, he’ll even say Obama’s words when quoting him.
At Reason, Tim Cavanaugh explains “How ‘You didn’t build that’ became ‘He didn’t say that’”:
The popularization of Derridaian post-modernism since the 1990s has generally been a lot of fun, turning mainstream Americans into sharp observers of signs and meaning who are sure that either there’s nothing outside the text or everything is outside the text or both. But at some point it helps to look at that thing above the subtext, which is generally known as “the text.” Up to this point the presidential election has been Obama vs. Obama Junior. With “You didn’t build that,” which his campaign has made no effort to clarify or redirect, the president has drawn a line in the sand.
There is no nebulousness here. Beyond the paragraph quoted above, Obama calls government spending “the investments that grow our economy.” He ridicules the tendency of Americans to brag about being hard workers with a variant of “So’s your old man.” (“Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.”) He instinctively names “a great teacher” when looking for somebody to credit for causing success in the working world. The president has boldly presented his view on how an economy works. His supporters should give him the respect of taking his words seriously.
And by doubling down on those of us who have started businesses and were raised in families with strong entrepreneurial spirits who take umbrage at the president’s words, Obama and his fellow elitist supporters are having yet another bitter clingers moment, as John Podhoretz recently wrote:
But when he extended it to personal and private endeavor, the president revealed the danger of this message—to him. ”If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that,” Obama said. “Somebody else made that happen.” Aside from the fact that this isn’t even remotely true—if you’re a taxpayer and government funds were used to “make something happen,” then by definition you paid for it—it was profoundly stupid politically. In 2007, the last year for which we have data, according to the Census Bureau, there were 21.7 million businesses in the United States with no employees—meaning they were sole proprietorships, or free-lance businesses employing only their owner. Of the six million remaining businesses in the U.S., more than 3 million had 1 to 4 employees, and 1 million had 5 to 9. So, all in all, small businesses run by one person employing fewer than ten numbered an astonishing 25 million.
This is probably the matter of greatest pride for each and every one of the people who runs that business. He or she views himself or herself as a hard-working, go-getting, scrappy individualist. And it’s likely that many of them—many, many of them—are independent voters. Certainly that was the case 20 years ago when Ross Perot scored 20 percent of the vote, overwhelmingly from small businessmen who were angered by George H.W. Bush and yet couldn’t pull the lever for Bill Clinton. America is different demographically, but the class of people to whom Perot appealed is far larger than it was then.
Obama hates that notion — truly hates it with a passion. He’d much rather have an economy dominated by a handful of “too big to fail” enterprises such as Government Motors and Solyndra — far easier to herd that millions of small businesses — that he can throw money — our money — to, a mindset that was on its way out when John Kenneth Galbraith espoused it a half century ago. Or to put it another way:
In a video appearance from 2009, venture capitalist Paul Holland — who had given the maximum legal contribution to Obama, and whose companies received over 6 million in government dollars — described his feelings when heard about the billions up for grabs.
“He came in to do his talk and opened his talk with, ‘I’m Matt Rogers I am the Special Assistant to the Secretary of Energy and I have $134 billion that I have to disperse between now and the end of December,’” Holland told the audience. “So upon hearing that I sent an email to my partners that said Matt Rogers is about to get treated like a hooker dropped into a prison exercise yard.”
Joe the Plumber’s simple question to Obama, which led the candidate to admit that his style of governing is “spread the wealth around” — the result of which can be seen in his crony’s “pimp” anecdote above — came far too late for an exhausted McCain campaign to capitalize on it. In contrast, as Podhoretz writes in a follow-up post, “Romney Should Send Obama a Fruit Basket” for having this gift dropped into his lap to define the stark choice voters will face this fall.
Or perhaps a copy of Pow Wow Chow.
(Headline inspired by the dialectics of Marx.)
Update: Speaking of Bush #41, “The chart that shows just how much reelection trouble Obama is in.”
Related: From Bryan Preston at the Tatler, “Obama ‘Truth Team:’ Don’t Quote the President Accurately! That’s a False Attack!” Also at the Tatler, don’t miss “Barack Obama, the Great Demotivator,” for lots more additional Demotivators, which our readers didn’t create, in response to the words that the president didn’t utter.
More: Michael Walsh has further thoughts on B.H. Obama versus H. Roark in his newest PJ Media column. “So there it is, Election 2012 in a nutshell: the individual vs. the collective,” Michael writes. “We know which side the president is on. Which side are you on?”
Wait — the whole “he was misquoted” defense hinges on citing a different sentence in the same speech?
Is there an honest person remaining among the left?
“Is there an honest person remaining among the left?”
Not that I have seen.
Was there one to start? The left doesn’t care about honesty. The truth is what they will broadcast one million or more times through their bought and paid for media outlets, and educational institutions, until it becomes the mantra for most of the public–the non-thinkers. And the reason that most of the public are non0thinkers is because of our hijacked educational system.
Punchline from next Romney ad:
Obama proves that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Rob,
“…citing a different sentence…..
Is there an honest person remaining among the left?”
Its the same approach they took in displaying the angelic 12 year old Trayvon Martin, when they had more recent pictures of a 6 foot tall, Gang-bang looking, full adult size, angry intimidating hoodlum…
Its not a lie..its a PICTURE of him, right?
In the stinking swamp that is todays Politics ,especially LEFT WING Politics, they call that ‘plausible deniability’ or as we say in plain English LYING.
Barry HUSSEIN Soetero Kardashian is doubly blessed in LYING ability as he is both a Left Wing Socialist moonbat who and he was brought up schooled and raised as a Muslim. Both of which experiences give him a good training in LIES and both of which highly prize, and in fact encourage, the ability to spout LIES and HYPOCRISY.
I detest what Obama stands for, and I think the quote does convey his real beliefs, but we have to be fair… Immediately before the quoted part, he was talking about the roads leading to a business. When I first watched the clip, I took him to say essentially, “That road leading to your business – you didn’t build that”. To be sure, he mangled the grammar, but then he’s not very bright when the prompter is off.
The full quote including his preceding sentence:
“Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.”
It’s at least debatable whether he was saying that you didn’t build your business by yourself, or that you didn’t build the roads that get people to your business. Of course, the sentiment is the same – no one succeeds alone, and if you created a successful business, you owe all the other people who built the infrastructure to make it happen, so they have a right to some of your profits. That’s what ‘progressives’ believe, and it’s how they justify the expropriation of property from others.
If you include the full context surrounding the “you didn’t build that” statement, the speech implies just what Romney said it implies. Paraphrasing, here’s what Obama said before that statement: You think you’re successful Mr. Businessman because you’re smart? A lot of people are smart. You think you work so hard? A lot of people work hard. So there.
Basically, he gives *no* credit to the brains, hard work, persistence, and riak that are required to build a successful business.
Obama’s speech also implies that any co-operative effort must involve the government. Note that he spoke of roads and firefighters as helping you out — not of grocers and handymen.
All in all, it was a truly despicable speech. As others have noted, there’s a quote from a villain in Atlas Shrugged that matches Obama’s sentiments perfectly: http://capitalism.aynrand.org/president-of-the-united-states-james-taggart/
Like I said, I agree that the overall sentiment is the same. But in specific, the impression I got when I first watched the clip was that Obama was referring to the roads and bridges when he said, “You didn’t build that”, and not referring to the business itself.
The problem is that by ignoring that bit of context, you open the door to the claim that you’re misquoting what he said, which may defuse the entire argument. There is plenty of damning nonsense in the entire speech, so it seems a bit of an unforced error to give the Obama campaign an opening like that.
Of course, this is the world of sound-bite politics, and that’s about as juicy a soundbite as you can get, so I understand why it was latched onto.
Okay, but if he was referring to the roads and bridges (plural) not a business (singular) then wouldn’t Obama have said, “Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build THESE.”
Not to be the grammar police, but we are talking about the Smartest President Ever. Personally, I think said what he meant and meant EXACTLY what he said, and what he truly believes. Off the cuff, the mask comes off.
Very good point. If Obama had been referring to the roads and bridges, he would have said “you didn’t build those”, he could have also said “you didn’t build that without help from these other things”, but he in fact said “you didn’t build that”, singular, which can only refer to the business and the business owner. Romneys characterization of Obamas statement is 100% accurate. Perhaps Obama didn’t really mean to say that, but he did in fact say it, and has yet to walk the statement back.
Yup — And, that miserable SOB said it with passion; and for once, you could tell this time the passion was not an act. He meant exactly what he said, in full context. The LibtardProgCollectivists’ mindset. His soulmates and voter base.
Exactly, because words (syntax, grammar, etc.) do matter. We cannot simply fit what we want into our narrative, like our accomplished, postmodern King BaHO does, and call it truth simply because it makes us look good.
Dan,
You can cut the preezy all the slack you’d like. Intellectual honesty, based upon revealed tendencies and prior statements, requires nothing of the sort from the rest of us.
What’s the old political saw? if you’re explaining, you’re losing. and I understand you’re trying to be fair but you are bending over backwards to do so. Not necessary with this crowd.
I would buy that except we have been informed repeatedly that he is the smartest president ever and a master communicator. So I take him at what he said.
Just like how Charles Barkley was misquoted in his autobiography
Obama hands us the winner!
Make sure the “You didn’t build that” quote is seared into the brain of every small business owner in the United States between now and November and we already have 20 million votes in the bag. Samizdat (putting the “You didn’t build that” posters on walls and billboards) will hit them twice as hard as they thought to hit us, and change the election narrative in a way the administration and the legacy media never expected.
Go get them!
Let’s grant Team O that he was referring to existing infrastructure.
1. What exactly was his point? What was the point of pointing out the obvious, if not to disparage free enterprise?
2. What has been added to to infrastructure supporting business, particularly small business, over the past 4 years? Yes, somebody else built that. Not Barack Obama or any of his followers.
3. Who paid for what’s there?
Even granting him that he was referring to existing infrastructure doesn’t help. It was still a monumentally boneheaded and pointless thing to say.Liberals have never built anything. They just like to pose next to stuff, and take credit for it.
Barack Obama, you didn’t build that. Other people made it happen. Much of it before you were even born. And taxpayers paid for it. Including the businesses you hate so viscerally.
Turns out today is the anniversary of the finding of the Rosetta Stone! It turns out that it a big thank you note to the pharaoh for giving a group of priests a tax break. Amazing how that works, even after thousands of years.
Now it is time for Romney to juxtapose:
video clip of Obama saying “You didn’t build that”
video clip from Obama campaign ad saying he didn’t say it.
A John Kerry moment: “I said it before I DIDN’T say it!” (Look at how much mileage the Bush 43 campaign got out of that one.) This is waaaay to good to pass up!
You didn’t build that! But I’ll damn sure tax you like you did!
Obama didn’t say that. Somebody else named Elizabeth Warren said that.
Oh he said it, alright, Snork, just Warren said it first.
When I heard the now-notorious “nobody does it on their own line” I was, for some reason, reminded of the famous sermon by Jonathan Edwards from 1741 – “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”
The sermon, for those who didn’t have to read it in high school, has God holding all mankind in his hands. Only His will keeps us from being shaken into the fiery abyss. Mercy is optional and a sinful past will cause God to shake you off his fingers as he would crumbs of bread.
One stanza reads…..”The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.”
Isn’t this how Obama sees us and our relationship to government? Without the blessed forebearance of the state we are all nothing and can accomplish nothing. The state is the only thing between us and perdition, it is the only thing that fills our lives with meaning. Mr. Obama and the self-styled government elites (such as Ms. Warren)…(L)ooks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire…”
Thus Mr. Obama has revealed himself as Prophet of the Church of the State. Nothing is (or should be) beyond it. To reject the state is to reject the very possibility of Salvation (or at least worldly success.) To claim that your own efforts have led to whatever success you enjoy is to announce a fearsome blasphemy against Holy Mother (or Non-Specific Gender) Church.
Obama said what he said and believes what he said because he did not get where he is through his own effort. Everything he “did” was provided for him by someone else, from his education to his “autobiographies” to his shot at president.
So he didn’t say what he was on record as saying?
Leaves both Orwell AND Kafka in the dust.
Michael Phelps could not have won 8 olympic gold medals, if there was no swimming pool – presumably built with Government assistance – for him to train in. Should he shared his olympic gold medals with the builders and operators of the swimming pool?
Apparently, yes. What’s really sick is that the people defending him are only doing so because just refuse to believe they voted for an un-American idiot.
Al Gore couldn’t have invented the internet if he hadn’t inherited a political career. By Obama’s logic, Gore Sr. invented the internet.
This is fun.
So, what you’re saying is, we wouldn’t have the internet if it weren’t for Roe V Wade?!” (You’re right. This IS fun!)
According to the Democratic spin people out there, Obama did “not” say “You didn’t build that,” he did “not” say “The private sector is fine, it’s the public sector that’s in trouble,” and he did “not” say “The mandate isn’t a tax.” Wow, if he didn’t say any of these things, I wonder what he DID say over the last few weeks? Probably nothing much, like he usually does.
Isn’t the issue that his voter base did *not* build that? The people he is counting on to vote for him, in his promises to “spread the wealth around”, are also the professional victims, dependent upon government largesse, who have for the most part not been successful at the American experiment.
The question then becomes, in a democracy, where are the larger number of votes? Are there now 51% of American voters who are dependent upon a government job with the Post Office, or a unionized teaching job, or who are either drawing disability or unemployment and have no intention of ever doing anything differently?
Or are there still 51% of American voters who believe enough in the American dream to get up in the morning, go to work at SOMEthing, have a goal and work towards it?
And, if we *do* vote in a President who will try to reverse the government take-over that Obama has been busily instituting these last 3-4 years, what the hell are we gonna do with that 49% of folks who think they need the “wealth to be spread around” sufficiently for them to survive? Let them and their illegitimate children starve to death?
Forget that paragraph, I’ll give him that one. The rest of the speech was a farrago of nonsense.
BO’s rhetoric got really gummed up when he tried to be specific. He mentions education which is a state and local responsibility, and which 60 years of Federal involvement has made worse. He mentions roads and bridges, another state and local responsibility, that is funded by user paid excise taxes, not the income tax he is campaigning for.
“Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”
Actually, the first predecessors of the modern internet were created with experimental funds from DoD, which wanted to research methods of computer communication between its contractors. But that technology was just part of the picture. WWW was created by scientists at CERN in Europe who needed to communicate their data faster. Commercialization, “companies could make money” came after the baby was kicked out of its nest and involved hundreds of private companies building billions of dollars of infrastructure.
“There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.”
Not really. Let us go back to the Founding. One of its most eminent leaders was Benjamin Franklin. Ben was what we might call a community organizer, among his other ventures: printer, writer, scientist, and statesman.
One of Ben’s first forays into community organization was his founding of the Union Fire Company in 1736, one of the very first volunteer fire departments in the United States. You will note that this was a venture in civil society, not a governmental organization. A few years later, Ben organized the first mutual fire insurance company in America. Once again, civil society, not government.
Even today, volunteer fire departments are civil society organizations that provide fire fighting services across much of rural and small town America.
“we funded the GI Bill.”
Of course that was two generations ago. It was done to repay the returning WWII veterans. This is something no one would quarrel with. Payments to veterans have been part of the American scene since the Revolution.
“we created the middle class. That’s how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam.”
I realize that these two sentences don’t form a logical entity, but what the hey. He was on a roll. References to enormous public works projects that occurred a long lifetime ago are just sad. Mark Steyn pointed out:
“Let me quote one Deanna Archuleta, Obama’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior, in a speech to Democratic environmentalists in Nevada: ‘You will never see another federal dam.’” http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/obama-359136-moon-together.html
And big bridge building projects moulder in environmental hell: http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/06/27/why-nothing-is-shovel-ready-anymore-2/
By the way. The Golden Gate Bridge was built by local governments with funds raised by the Bank of America, and over the objections of the Federal Government.http://reason.com/blog/2012/07/17/obamas-shaggy-dog-story-about-the-golden
“That’s how we sent a man to the moon.” Fifty years ago. Of course on his watch the US has now reached the point of having to pay the Russians 50 million dollars a ticket to get our men to the ISS, a long way from the Moon. Pretty sad, ehh.
Now, let’s put it all together. 1. BHO created a cohesive voting block against him that is now extraordinarily motivated to vote and to vote against him. This is then created out of the whole cloth of independent and conservative business people, numbering some 25 millions.
2. He is proven to hate small, medium, and large business, free market enterprize upon which this country was founded. He is foreign to the concept. Bring that down and he can bring America down HARD.
3. He hates hydrocarbon energy because that is what props up the American exceptionalism. The green energy initiatives are mere fig leaves to cover his hatred in an effort to bring this country down—otherwise denoted as the Progressivist Agenda.
4. Continue to enlarge the federal government by taxing, spending, borrowing, and wasting taxpayor monies. Create ever larger annual budget deficits and national debt. The effort here is to cause the country financial collapse, like a Tall Ship with a mast that can be extended higher and higher until the slightest wave can crater it.
5. Keep employment down and unemployment permanently high. Do this until an underclass of structurally obsolescent former workers are created, dependent upon government, which will run out of taxes and credit and will crumble.
6. Do this to create chaos, crisis, riots. Do this while pretending to be in favor of jobs, business, investment, and political compromise. Pretend long enough to bring the country down.
7. Use the power of the office of the American presidency to accomplish gun-control, border grand danger, and say you are in favor of immigration overall solutions; all the while being against all of this.
8. Use the power of the federal agencies, leftwing ngos, and unions to formulate regulation strangulation, obstreperous rules, and hateful laws to bring this country down.
All of this and much more, domestically and abroad, are being deployed to bring America down. We have a major shot at stopping all of this. While you may or may not like Romney and the Republicans, vote them in. Whether or not they do a great job or not, they are not out to destroy our beloved country.
BHO and the GANGSTERS are……..
This ‘out of context’ thing is being mis-applied here. There is a difference between the literal words and the conversational means with which he delivered the words. If you listen to the speech just before he says what he’s being lynched for, you’ll notice that he interrupts his own train of thought and inserts another one. He mangles his own thoughts and words when off the prompter or when ad-libbing, so extemporaneous speaking is definitely not his game.
The sentence before the ‘you didn’t build that’ sentence says: ‘Somebody invested in roads and bridges.’ This is what he was referring to when he says ‘you didn’t build that’. He stopped himself mid-thought because he remembered the imperious words of Elizabeth Warren.
Those who are attacking this and making into an enormous problem are doing the same thing as NBC on the Zimmerman edits. Or they’re just playing into liberals’ game by demonstrating conservative ignorance. Liberals do the same thing. You guys are just feeding these news outlets.
PS [Please PJMedia STOP WITH THE AD-CLICKS EVERYWHERE stategy]
Yes, somebody “invested” in that infrastructure — taxpayers, particularly those taxpayers who have increased their wealth with successful businesses. And Government research didn’t create the Internet “so that all the companies could make money off the Internet” as Obama argued elsewhere in the speech — it created it to survive the Cold War.
If you’re arguing on behalf of the president that half of the country misunderstood the man whom the other half of the country sold in 2008 as the Greatest Communicator since Cicero, he’s already lost the argument.
We understand that BHO’s garbled thinking is an analog to Bush’s.
Exact meanings of words and ideas are weaponized. The literal reading of the words has to be prefaced by intention. Perhaps the reason so many believed the ‘Greatest Communicator’ story was because mass media misrepresented the man, in order to give that particular public what it needed. It used the weapon at its disposal. This is what’s happening with the ‘you didn’t build that’ meme.
On that note, what’s the literal reading of this: “So I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it; it was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter.” –Revelation 10:10
I’m not a bible person, I just remembered from my high school english class that language is a set of metaphors.
Seems to be the distinction between those who read too much and those who read too little. There’s gotta be common ground, no?
As a commenter posted at Ricochet today:
If I remember correctly, the argument about taxes was related to personal tax rates on the wealthy which are lower compared to corporate rates which are [as noted by the poster] among the highest in the world. The commenter highlights corporate rates as the basis of his argument for BHO’s need to raise taxes. This doesn’t support the commenter’s criticism. And I realize it is a futile argument to believe that higher personal income taxes will in any way dent the deficit.
I generally agree with the oversized government issue and that higher taxes are not the answer, but the strategy of purposeful distortion [the subject of this post] is the ‘Kill! Kill!’ rather than ‘Win! Win!’ argument from the Vietnam era.
Fairness cannot be determined by one side of an argument. It is a negotiation.
What really is the meaning of Obama’s argument? Higher taxes? That is not an educated reading of the speech. It is a fear-induced reflex [perhaps justified].
What really is the meaning of Romney’s argument? Smaller government? Also a fear induced reflex.
There is a surface reading of these issues [the literal text] as well as a larger reading. When both sides use the word ‘America’, they mean the America that their world envisions. I think there is an America, but it’s not what either side is talking about.
You’re lapsing even deeper into postmodernism. Sometimes “is” really does mean “is.” You might to read the link to the Reason article in the post on the topic.
So Robert, what you are saying is that Obama is a tongue tied idiot. I’ll buy that. But reading the rest of his rant doesn’t change my opinion about his ideas very much.
The lines about the Golden Gate bridge show that he does not appreciate the advantages of a Federal system, nor does he understand how the bankers he rails against were able to help their communities during the Great Depression.
But the lines about fire fighting, of all things, are even more revealing. Clearly the man, who has lived in the biggest cities in the country for his entire adult life knows nothing about volunteer fire departments, and how these civil society institutions which are at the core of their communities, work.
He also knows nothing about the history of this country or he would remember Benjamin Franklin, the old white dude on the $100 bill, who organized the first VFD and the first mutual fire insurance company in the US. Note, Ben was at the constitutional convention and never once suggested that fire fighting was a Federal responsibility, or even a governmental responsibility.
My reading of the entire speech is that it all flows from the basic socialist premise, first articulated by Rousseau, that the existence of the State precedes the existence of the individual, as a matter of right and a matter of fact. He believes that individuals are pathetic and that only the hand of the State can lift them out of the muck.
Americans, on the other hand, believe that individuals precede the state, that they derive unalienable rights from their Creator, that they create governments to protect their rights, and that they created the Federal Government as an institution of limited powers for limited purposes. They believe that they are important, and their actions are important. They believe that their individual efforts are central to their lives, liberties, and their pursuit of happiness.
We need a president who believes these things too. BO ain’t it.
Obama went into one of the greatest restaurants in the country with some friends, selected an improbably complicated dish that was constructed as if it was from a science lab and out came the most magnificent tasting meal that he devoured.
Everyone at his table had a taste and when the maestro chef came over they all gushed about what a genius he was. He turned to Obama, who said…”You didn’t make that. You had help. Somewhere along the way, other people were responsible for this dish, it wasn’t you”
His friends were astonished, they told him his dish was the best they ever experienced. It lit up all their senses and amazed them with its creativity.
Obama said, “That’s because I knew what to order, how to order, where to order. The ordering was brilliant.”
The chef hearing all this immediately renamed the dish.
Seal Team Six
Dan, as was pointed out in the article, the roads and bridges were built with tax moneys taken from American citizens. So, in a sense, they did build those. Furthermore, if we are to take Obama’s words as meaning you didn’t build the infrastructure, that is true for everybody in the US. I doubt, though, that Obama would tell women they haven’t done anything. Or unions. Or (fill in the blank with loyal democrat constituents). Why single out business owners? My guess, it’s the prelude to the tax increase and inciting more class warfare. Any other theory would have to explain why he doesn’t say this to the NAACP, Teamsters, AFL-CIO, single mothers, et al.
it’s must easier to control the masses when employed by one giant entity than to have many small entities employeing a handful in comparison. obama is delibratly trying to drive small business out of business. just one more tack he’s using in his attempts to control the populace – to many of whom won’t realize what is happending until it’s too late.
“Somebody else made that happen” is PERFECTLY LOGICAL.
The line is a beloved child of “PROPERTY IS THEFT.”
Deductive reasoning, the opiate of the thinking classes, makes everything logical, but not reasonable.
You didn’t build that. The carpenters did.
I am thinking of a video with the song “We built this city on rock and roll”, and then video of obama saying “you didn’t build that”.
Back in ’08, øbama’s comment to Joe the Plumber about “spreading the wealth around” should have been a turning point in the upcoming election. Although McCain used these comments in his campaign, he never really attacked the ‘bama with it. Meanwhile, the media used every method in the book to ridicule Joe, and in the end, McCain wasted a very good opportunity.
I don’t think true blue Americans (and I ain’t talkin’ about the modern media’s version of democrat blue – the phrase “better off RED than dead” is much more fitting for these leftist commies!) will be buffaloed twice. It seems that maybe, just maybe, øbama’s latest gaffe (Freudian slip?) about “you didn’t build that” might just be the moment where the political winds have begun to shift. Too many good people have been insulted by these words – all with personal stories, family history, good employers who did the right thing in tough times, etc., etc.
It seems that Mr. Romney took personal offense to that attack, and well he should have! Now, Mr. Romney, carpe diem and do not let up!!! There are millions upon millions of true blue Americans who are counting on you, and are looking forward to a brighter future under your upcoming Presidency!!
“You didn’t build this” was another wholly premeditated concept; an intentional line foreshadowing another Obama Marxist principle.
What it’s leading to is the idea that, “you don’t own it”. The state owns it.
This is precisely where he’s going with this.
Kick Obama’s sorry butt out Nov. 6 by giving the anointed one the beating of his life.
I agree with you 100%, Rachel. It is definitely an Orwellian Newspeak attempt to indoctrinate the American people with what is to come.
In my USAF days I served for 6 years in West Berlin (mostly before the Wall came down). I saw many times (and HEARD many, many more times) what it was like in the Communist East. What we’re seeing now is VERY reminiscent of those dark days. Just like in the East, the US media has willingly become an “organ” of the state, and manipulates information/news to promote the agenda of the regime. Whether through propaganda, distortion, out-and-out lies, or simply withholding vital information (ala proper vetting of the pResident), the state-owned media has attempted to sway the masses (funny, but in the old days the “masses” always referred to some poor peoples in far away places but NEVER Americans!) their way.
I had previously thought that 0bama slipped up with the “you didn’t build this” commentary, but you might be right, Rachel. But, on the POSITIVE side, I think he and his cronies UNDERESTIMATED the American people. He opened up a real hornet’s nest and too many Americans (foreigners too!) are mad as H311!!!