Obama on his business owner slam: I didn't say that. Romney made that happen; Update: Obama doubles down in ad

Jenn Taylor | 10:46 AM on July 24, 2012

The buck-passer in chief is at it again. At an Oakland, Calif., fundraiser yesterday, President Obama accused Mitt Romney of “twisting” the words in his contemptuous “you didn’t build that” slam on entrepreneurs.

Pres @BarackObama on critics –> "when folks omit entire sentences of what you say .. Splicing and dicing ,,, going over the edge a bit"

— Christine Pelosi (@sfpelosi) July 24, 2012

Twisting, splicing and dicing? Excuse us?

https://twitter.com/Rschrim/status/227745082290356224

Let’s take a look at the full quote, via the White House website:

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. (Applause.)

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.

Sorry, President Obama. With or without the full context, your utter disdain for self-made business owners is abundantly clear — even to the Democrats who put you in office. You attributed the success of American entrepreneurs to Big Daddy Government, disparaging the ingenuity, elbow grease and risk-taking that actually built America.

President Obama, Romney didn’t have to “splice and dice” that to convince Americans you attacked hard work and success. Somebody else made that happen — you.

Update:

Obama doubled down on the “out of context” argument in a whiny, defensive ad. Here’s the transcript:

Those ads taking my words about small business out of context; they’re flat out wrong. Of course Americans build their own business. Everyday hard-working people sacrifice to meet a payroll, create jobs, and make our economy run.

And what I said was that we need to stand behind them as America always has. By investing in education, training, roads and bridges, research and technology. I’m Barack Obama and I approve this message because I believe we’re all in this together.