President Obama, after first claiming — falsely — that he was misquoted, now says his “You Didn’t Build That” remarks was taken out of context. They weren’t. Cue the video below to 32:26. That will start you with Obama suggesting that our schools are failing because students don’t want to learn, about a minute before his notorious remarks on success.
Obama talks about his “balanced way” to cut the deficit: cutting the budget by a “trillion or trillion-two” (ASIDE: Obama has added over $1.5 trillion in annual spending, before Obamacare kicks in) and asking “for the wealthy to pay a little bit more”. He then explains why they should be happy to do it: First, it worked great when Bill Clinton did it. (I suppose he would see it that way.) Second, they should “want to give something back” because:
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!
[And so on.]
There’s nothing in the context that is remotely exculpatory. Obama was explaining that successful people should be happy to pay higher taxes, because they didn’t succeed on their own; others were responsible for their success.
Obama can’t say specifically how he is being distorted, because he isn’t being distorted at all. He just wishes he hadn’t said it. He can’t just walk it back either, because this is a man who is temperamentally unable to admit being wrong. Instead, he has to lash out at everyone else for failing to appreciate his unspoken intent.
UPDATE: Here’s the official transcript.
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