Obama Taken Wildly Out Of Context On "Building Business" By Cooperation-phobes - Benjy Sarlin

Mitt Romney and an array of surrogates are mocking President Obama for remarks he made defending public investments in infrastructure, accusing him of arrogantly claiming credit for small businesses’ hard work and risk-taking. But it takes an Olympic-level gymnastic leap to make the attack work as advertised.  

The Romney campaign is seizing on an out-of-context line the president said at a campaign event in Virginia on Friday: “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” Or, as a Romney press release blared: “OBAMA, TO BUSINESS OWNERS: ‘YOU DIDN’T BUILD THAT.’”

Sounds pretty bad — and it is, if you leave out the sentences directly before and after, which make it crystal clear Obama wasn’t talking about building businesses at all. The “that” in “you didn’t build that” referred to roads, bridges, infrastructure, education, emergency services and law and order — all services that protect and enable business owners along the way toward creating a successful operation.

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