Fake Gaffe of the Day: ‘The Private Sector Is Doing Fine’
Mitt Romney, the Republican Party, and right wing talk radio and blogs are all piling on in unison again (hey, wait; I thought they were supposed to be “silent” today?) about another completely bogus outrage related to guess who.
Here’s what President Obama said:
Youtube VideoPresident Obama: The truth of the matter is that, as I said, we created 4.3 million jobs over the last 27 months, over 800,000 just this year alone.
The private sector is doing fine. Where we’re seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government. Oftentimes cuts initiated by, you know, Governors or mayors who are not getting the kind of help that they have in the past from the federal government and who don’t have the same kind of flexibility as the federal government in dealing with fewer revenues coming in.
It’s blindingly obvious that Obama didn’t say the whole economy is “doing fine.” Ezra Klein has a good post on this if you want the wonky details, but Obama’s point was that job creation in the private sector is going fairly well, while the public sector is losing jobs.
It’s another one of those invented “gaffes,” that only looks like a gaffe if you pluck out one phrase — “the private sector is doing fine” — and completely ignore the context and the point being made.
Romney’s already hammering the “out of touch” angle, of course. But this is just more of the same dishonest spinning we’ve seen from him since the campaign began.