Obama shares his beliefs about business

[Onkel Neal]

This was his magic word gaffe: a statement that reveals not what a politician believes, but what you already feared, in your bone marrow, that a politician believes.

Brit Hume explained this first and best. "It is fair to say that we know more tonight than we ever have about the president's view of business and the economy," he said. His assertion over the weekend that "if you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen" explains nearly everything. He wasn't talking about God. He was talking about government.

Yowser! He better stick with the teleprompter.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...resident_.html

[Tchocky]

Good post by Weigel, really gets into the way diferent people can react to the same input.

[artao]

Taken in context, it's not nearly as damning. It's certainly a big gaffe however. .. not an Obama supporter myself, but people are really grasping at straws with this gaffe IMHO.

[AVGWarhawk]

There is no grasping IMO. He said exactly what has been interpreted.

Tribesman will think otherwise though.

[Ducimus]

Ddin't read it. Looks like the usual political "rally the troops" BS. However, i counted the word gaffe six times, so i have to wonder if this applies.

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

There is no grasping IMO. He said exactly what has been interpreted.

Interpreted by who, though?

On July 14, a conservative North Carolina activist named Erik Soderstrom that made it sound like Obama gave business owners no credit for building anything.

...versus...

In his 2008 nomination speech, for example, then-candidate Obama talked endlessly about safety nets letting “someone with a good idea … take a risk and start a new business” without having to “choose between keeping their jobs and caring for a sick child.” The Washington Examiner’s Conn Carroll points out that Obama’s Roanoke speech merely “made a long-standing and fundamental liberal argument in an unappealing way.” The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent argues that Mitt Romney, who does not plan to dismantle the Small Business Administration or the Department of Education, concedes some of the argument.

The quote means pretty much what you want it to mean.


Here's the full wording and transcript of what was said:

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me -- because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t -- look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. 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..

I bolded more than the sentence being talked about, because I think you can't separate it out any further.

[AVGWarhawk]

Interpreted by who, though?

The right of course. I also think it was interpreted correctly. How else could it be interpreted?