Obama: "When I Said 'Just Fine' I Thought You'd Buy It"

Correction:

President Barack Obama stressed the U.S. economy is “not doing fine,” seeking to clarify his earlier comments about the private sector and accusing his Republican rivals of lacking ideas about how to stoke growth and create jobs…

“It is absolutely clear that the economy is not doing fine, that’s the reason I had a press conference,” the Democratic president said, seated next to Filipino President Benigno Aquino.

But here are Obama’s full remarks from earlier today:

The truth of the matter is that, as I said, we created 4.3 million jobs over the last 27 months, over 800,000 just this year alone.

The private sector is doing fine. Where we’re seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government. Oftentimes cuts initiated by, you know, Governors or mayors who are not getting the kind of help that they have in the past from the federal government and who don’t have the same kind of flexibility as the federal government in dealing with fewer revenues coming in.

This is a well thought-out remark. When Obama said the private is “doing fine,” he meant it; that was no slip of the tongue. He really believes the problem out there is that California and Michigan are laying off too many firefighters and teachers.

But notice, please, that states like Wisconsin and Texas aren’t having so much trouble keeping public sector workers on the payroll. Obama ought to ask himself why that is.

There’s a deeper problem, and it speaks to the very deep corruption of Obama’s politics.

We were meant to believe, according to the President’s well thought-out remarks, that the private sector really is OK, and that only one thing is needed to get our economy moving again. Can you guess what that one thing is?

Yep: That one thing is bailing out craptaculent blue states like California and Michigan — with money borrowed from our kids, and with money taken from successes in Wisconsin and Texas.

Yep. More of the got-dam same. Obama is using this extended crisis as an excuse to buy yet more votes in states he desperately needs, if he’s going to win another four years of Democrat vote-buying.

Yep. He expected you to fall for it.

Yep. SCoaMF.

And now he’s backpedaling like it’s a new Olympic sport. Good luck with that, Mr. President — because Romney is going to absolutely punish you for it.