Posted on 08/04/2012 11:01:02 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
“Do you think not getting caught in a lie is the same as telling the truth?…”—Robert Redford, “Three Days of the Condor” (1975)
In the long, undistinguished annals of big-time gaffes in American politics, Barack Hussein Obama’s recent shot at small businesspeople ranks near the top. Indeed, this astonishing verbal blunder has taken on a life of its own.
As a result, three weeks after the president’s ill-advised comments during a July 13 campaign speech in Roanoke, Va., much of America is still talking about his unseemly words. And they are still hard to believe. To wit:
“If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that—somebody else made that happen.” Ugh!
What’s the best way to describe what Obama said? Here’s what some pundits are calling it: “botch,” “blunder,” “bungle,” “delusional,” “faux pas,” “fumble,” “gaffe,” “goof,” “loopy,” “misstep,” “stumble” and, quite simply, that he put his foot in his mouth big-time.
In effect, Obama dissed America’s business community in general, and small businesspeople in particular. It’s unconscionable that a president of the United States would do this. His words were stunning and simply unbelievable. And they continue to resonate.
What could Obama have been thinking? Some have speculated that it was due to “going off teleprompter”—that is, speaking off the cuff without reading from the multiple teleprompters that always surround him. Doing so is not his strong suit. Others say this president is simply anti-free market business.
If the former was the case—perhaps surprisingly to his worshippers—Obama is in for a tough time in the upcoming presidential debates against presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney. American political debates are a contact sport and spontaneous.
If it was the latter, Obama truly is out of his depth as president. Doesn’t he understand that the nation’s economy was built by the blood, sweat and tears of hard-working businesspeople—small as well as large? His fixation with the federal government as a panacea is, quite frankly, an embarrassment and reeks of socialism.
Here’s how Romney responded to Obama’s blunder: “To say something like that is not just foolishness, it’s insulting to every entrepreneur, every innovator in America. I don’t think the president, by his comments, understands what makes America a unique nation. If you attack success, you’ll see what we’ve seen over the past few years—less success. I find it extraordinary that a philosophy of that nature would be spoken by a president of the United States.”
In the same vein, Romney took Obama to task for failing to meet with his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness for the last six months. And the explanation by the president’s press secretary, Jay Carney? “He’s got a lot on his plate.” Huh? Can you believe it?
Predictably, Obama’s loopy small business gaffe, which has strongly galvanized Republicans, is reflected in many pointed letters to the editor in big-city newspapers. The writers leave no doubt as to their negative feelings. Following are some excerpts:
“Would the late, great Sylvia Woods, the ‘Queen of Soul Food,’ have agreed with President Obama that someone else made her tremendous success happen?”
“Of all of Obama’s rhetoric in the White House, his attack on the very notion of creativity has been the most destructive, by far. If he had said this in 2008, he would have been unelectable.”
“Beyond the small business community, which suffered a direct insult, Obama has just told each and every American that they cannot expect to succeed without him. I think that comes as a shock to even his most fervent followers.”
“According to Obama’s philosophy, no one builds anything. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, John D. Rockefeller and the rest of the great entrepreneurs in history are merely leeching off the efforts of others.”
“By letting his view slip out, Obama displays a lack of faith in our economic system, diligence and people.”
These sentiments express very clearly why Obama’s classic gaffe could be what millions of Americans will remember in the voting booth on Nov. 6. Prior to the election, his inexplicable diss of small businesspeople may also become a focal point of the three presidential debates in October.
A concrete result of Obama’s small business comments is reflected in a new Gallup poll released July 26. In it, his approval rating among business owners dropped from 59 percent to 35 percent. Meanwhile, the latest Rasmussen tracking poll has Romney leading Obama overall by six points—49 percent to 43 percent.
Finally, Obama’s intemperate remarks of July 13 were exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time. America is a working-class nation whose citizens don’t like anyone telling them they didn’t make it on their own. That’s because most small businesspeople did.
Bottom line: It’s clear the land is rife with political unrest among independents—such as this writer—and Republicans. If you’re a Democrat, you’d better hope Obama gets his act together or, indeed, he’ll be a one-term president. And that’s the name of that tune.
The author
What a find 2nd Div! A shocker to see that article from that newspaper.
Other freepers may not realize but the Amsterdam News is NYC’s black newspaper. I think that generally it is very far left.
I’m just gobsmacked that they would even publish this. Not that is it not a good article, it’s very good and true.
LOL, I can’t believe the writer talks about Obama’s “worshipers”. Amazing!
This whole “gay marriage”/Chick-fil-A/you didn’t build that fiasco may have turned just enough blacks, Hispanics and low-information voters against Mr. Obama to decide the race. Team Obama is so insulated in the faculty lounge and Chicago machine that they seemingly forgot that more blacks attend church than any other demographic and that Prop 8 was defeated by the people who showed up to pull the lever for BHO, not Mormons or white evangelicals.
Not a gaffe! It’s a way of life (for him). It is because of how he was raised and who he is... He is an accident of history!
the latest tracking poll from Rasmussen says Romney up by 2 points not 6 as the author states and that’s before all the media propoganda of Obama getting credit for Friday’s job creation numbers kicks in.
I made a patriotic video in response to Obama’s misguided arrogant blunder.
LOL, that’s awful. A great use of a great shot of those two.
Sigh, I have some sympathy for Barack, that Michelle seems like a tough dame to deal with. He does seem like he’s a good dad. I’m pretty sure his daughters must worship the ground he walks on. Which is OK for them.
I hope they grow up to be not communists. Not sure how that could happen with their background, but I hope they escape the mental prison of the Left.
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink
I don’t see what was so strange about that statement? He’s just paraphrasing a passage the Manifesto. Hee hee.
Obama back: Ewww. I had to pull down my underwear and do unspeakable things to have them. All you did was lie there.
Very easy. They worship the ground he walks on now. But puberty is coming. Nyah hah ha.
If "you didn't build that" then you don't deserve the profits, and leftists feel better about themselves when they confiscate and redistribute those profits. It's just a lie to make theft seem moral.
“The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them.
And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand, by enforced
destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and
by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for
more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises
are prevented.
The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned
against the bourgeoisie itself.
But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also
called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons — the modern working class —
the proletarians.
In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the
proletariat, the modern working class, developed — a class of laborers, who live only so long
as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labor increases capital. “
>> I’m just gobsmacked that they would even publish this.
Very interesting all things considered.
“I hope they grow up to be not communists. Not sure how that could happen with their background, but I hope they escape the mental prison of the Left.”
Stalin’s daughters?
“I hope they grow up to be not communists. Not sure how that could happen with their background, but I hope they escape the mental prison of the Left.”
Stalin’s daughters?
That's exactly right. Here in Colorado, television is unwatchable with the political ads (as if the regular programming doesn't make it that way). But Saturday, Governor Hickenlooper had an ad about a state website that supposedly "helps" small business. They are scrambling to muddy a clear statement of belief.
He said that people who need help in building their small business can log in and get help (if you are a "vibrant minority," of course).
What angers me is not so much that they "feel" the way they do, although that is horrible, but that they have the temerity to lie and say they don't "feel" that way. ("Feeling" substitutes for "thinking" with liberals.)
I cant wait for the debate when Obama says, I did not say that you Didnt Build that Business,I was Talking about roads and bridges! Then Romney turns to him and says,There you go again, thinking you are smarter than everyone else,there are a Lot of smart People out there in America and they are Smart enough to Know what you Really said,and you may Believe it,but its not the American way. American PEOPLE CREATE JOBS NOT GOVERNMENT!
It’s not a gaffe, nor is it a blunder. It’s how Obama and his ilk really think.
This is why Obama must always be tethered to a teleprompter.
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