Lots of people in the conservinterwebs going crazy about Obama’s quote saying:

“If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

Ooh: Obama doesn’t understand entrepreneurship, right? Doesn’t understand capitalism, or business? Sounds pretty bad, and you could almost agree with Romney’s press release and Fox’s pundits that have been making that point all day…

In fact, Romney’s press-released comment seems pretty spot-on:

“The idea to say that Steve Jobs didn’t build Apple, that Henry Ford didn’t build Ford Motor, that Papa John didn’t build Papa John Pizza, that Ray Kroc didn’t build McDonald’s, that Bill Gates didn’t build Microsoft, you go on the list, that Joe and his colleagues didn’t build this enterprise, to say something like that is not just foolishness, it is insulting to every entrepreneur, every innovator in America and it’s wrong.” – Mitt Romney 7/17/2012

Hmmm… sounds like he may have a point, right? Well, unless you happened to read the context around the original Obama quote:

“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.”

Well that sounds much better, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t you agree with that expression, that if you built a business, you didn’t build the roads and the bridges and the fire department that help you be successful?

Does anyone want to make the claim that Romney actually was confused, and perhaps took the Obama comment incorrectly, by honest mistake? Or would you not agree that there is a specific intent to deceive people, by removing the context that turns a relatively innocuous, true statement into something that could only be said by someone who is completely out of touch with reality?

Politicians. The only thing more embarrassing than the things they make up is the fact that so few people bother enough to check when they are making things up.