Obama’s ‘What I Said Was That We Need To Stand Behind Businesses’ Strangely Different From His Actual Words: ‘If You’ve Got A Business, You Didn’t Build That’

Obama’s having a problem: he is kicking his very own ass.  He keeps talking and talking and he can’t shut up.

He’s now trying to do everything he can to scrub the factual record and say that he didn’t say what he actually very clearly said.

His latest foot-in-mouth disease moment should put the kibosh on this Marxist ever coming close to a second term – with the now famous words:

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.

We’re now being told that Obama was referring not to businesses, silly, but to roads and bridges.

But a basic understanding of the English language pretty much rules that out:

The [Obama] Team then explains: “The President’s full remarks show that the ‘that’ in ‘you didn’t build that’ clearly refers to roads and bridges–public infrastructure we count on the government to build and maintain.”

That’s bunk, and not only because “business” is more proximate to the pronoun “that” and therefore its more likely antecedent. The Truth Team’s interpretation is ungrammatical. “Roads and bridges” is plural; “that” is singular. If the Team is right about Obama’s meaning, he should have said, “You didn’t build those.”

Barack Obama is supposed to be the World’s Greatest Orator, the smartest man in the world. Yet his campaign asks us to believe he is not even competent to construct a sentence.

So let’s examine this thing we call our language and see how it actually works:

“If you’ve got a business (singular), you didn’t build THAT (singular).”

Which of course is what Obama very clearly said. Because yes, you turd, yes he WAS referring to business and in particular to the immediate antecedent noun “a business”.

Whereas if Obama had actually intended to refer to roads and bridges and ignore the general antecedent rule with pronouns he would have said:

“Somebody invested in roads and bridges (plural, and in fact actually two plurals). If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build THOSE. Somebody else made THOSE happen.”

Which he didn’t say. Because he’s a communist among other reasons.  Just as conservatives have been trying to tell the nation for the last four years as it has circled the drain due to Obama’s failed socialist policies.

Or another way to express it in Obama speak: “All the Obamas and all of the liberals in the world is stupid.”  Because they are literally trying to “fundamentally transform” the English language along with America in order to explain away Obama’s Marxist Freudian slip.

The Washington Post points out that Obama’s words are right in line with what he’s been saying all along:

Here’s the entire 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.”

His words this time were a little stronger (or perhaps impolitic), but he’s said basically the same thing before.

●From June: “Yes, there have been fierce arguments throughout our history between both parties about the exact size and role of government — some honest disagreements. But in the decades after World War II, there was a general consensus that the market couldn’t solve all of our problems on its own.”

●From his January State of the Union Address: “… Even my Republican friends who complain the most about government spending have supported federally financed roads and clean energy projects and federal offices for the folks back home. The point is, we should all want a smarter, more effective government.”

●From 2009, before his stimulus package passed: “Only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy, where a lack of spending leads to lost jobs which leads to even less spending.”

So, whether you want to talk about English grammar or whether you want to talk about Obama’s own history and his own policies, he said what he said and he meant what he said.

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

I have also pointed out that all the things Obama referred to minimize the role that business owners play in their own success while maximizing the role that Government plays in their success – public schools and public school teachers, public roads, government loans and the Internet – were ALL used by mass murderer James Holmes.  And yet I don’t hear Obama claiming the credit for Holmes’ success as a murderous psycho for using public schools, public roads, government grants and the Internet the way he’s claiming credit for small business owners’ success.

Tags: If you’ve got a business, Jack Gilchrist, James Holmes, only government can break the vicious cycles, plural, roads and bridges, that, those, what I said was that we need to stand behind businesses, you didn’t build that