{"id":11625,"date":"2012-07-21T22:45:13","date_gmt":"2012-07-22T03:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=11625"},"modified":"2012-07-21T22:45:13","modified_gmt":"2012-07-22T03:45:13","slug":"if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2012\/07\/21\/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that\/","title":{"rendered":"If you\u2019ve got a business \u2014 you didn\u2019t build that"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Someone who doesn&#8217;t listen carefully, posted this snippet of the President&#8217;s remarks in Roanoke Virginia.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: thick ridge #009900;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YKjPI6no5ng?rel=0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<pre><\/pre>\n<p>If you have a hard time catching what the President said, match it up with this <a title=\"Transcript of the remarks by the President\" href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/the-press-office\/2012\/07\/13\/remarks-president-campaign-event-roanoke-virginia\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>transcript from the White House web site<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 The transcript seems accurate to me.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00a0If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.\u00a0 There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.\u00a0 Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.\u00a0 Somebody invested in roads and bridges.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve got a business &#8212; you didn\u2019t build that.\u00a0 Somebody else made that happen.\u00a0 The Internet didn\u2019t get invented on its own.\u00a0 Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I started to hunt this down, when a certain Boston newspaper reported Mitt Romney mocking the phrase, &#8220;If you\u2019ve got a business \u2014 you didn\u2019t build that.&#8221;\u00a0 It took them over 20 column inches before they\u00a0 put some context around the phrase:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In Virginia, Obama\u2019s blunt \u201cyou didn\u2019t build that\u201d was accompanied by, \u201cThere was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>For several days, I have taken <em>The Boston Globe<\/em> at its word\u00a0 and had to admit that Obama did not state his case very well.\u00a0 Reading more in the UK Guardian made me start to have doubts about even the Globe&#8217;s belated attempt to set the record straight.\u00a0 So I finally found the video and transcript above.<\/p>\n<p>Nothing in the whole <em>Boston Globe<\/em> article makes it clear that in the quote &#8220;If you\u2019ve got a business &#8212; you didn\u2019t build that.&#8221;, the word that does not refer to the business.\u00a0 It refers to the roads and bridges that the business person most assuredly did not build.<\/p>\n<p>Even the person who posted the video clip still managed to misinterpret what the President said.\u00a0 If you want to believe the President said it the way Mitt Romney and The Boston Globe imply that he did, then there is nothing I can do to stop you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Someone who doesn&#8217;t listen carefully, posted this snippet of the President&#8217;s remarks in Roanoke Virginia. If you have a hard time catching what the President said, match it up with this transcript from the White House web site.\u00a0 The transcript seems accurate to me. \u00a0If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-stevegsposts","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11625"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11626,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11625\/revisions\/11626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}