"You really want to hang your entire campaign on a willful, out-of-context misunderstanding?"
Yes... yes, he does.
If the 2012 election can be likened to a war, then each news cycle is a battle. Actually, that's probably a terrible way to look at it, but that's not stopping either campaign or their respective media mouthpieces. To wit, Jon Stewart took a look on Wednesday's show at You Didn't Build That-Gate, and how Romney and Fox News have milked Obama's phrasing for all its tea-party-rousing worth.
Clearly, in his Virginia speech, President Obama was making a point about the way infrastructure supports business and the interconnectedness of the economy and government with personal success and hard work. But, you see, he accidentally said "that" at one point when he meant "those." So release the hounds.
Jon Stewart doesn't cotton to that, though: "Making a big deal out of a misstatement is a great way to win a news cycle... But this ain't a gaffe and Mitt Romney's not having a little fun with it. This deliberate misstating and misrepresentation of Obama's position is now the centerpiece of Romney's campaign."
It's almost like taking Romney's "I like firing people" statement out of context and using it against him. (Although, one could argue that the phrase "I like firing people" is slightly less obscured by being taken out of context than "you didn't build that." After all, that could be anything: a road, a business, a sandcastle, a Death Star...)
But in case one doesn't grasp the real problem with this kind of campaigning, Stewart underlines his point: "Mr. Romney, hanging your attack on a person's slight grammatical misstep is what people do in an argument when they're completely fucked and know they have no argument."
Indeed. Watch the clip above and let us know if you think this kind of campaigning is going to pay off for Romney in the long run.
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