Apparently praise is a zero-sum game to some people; to offer any to people down the line is to take some away from those at the top.
That’s one of the more remarkable things to.come from this for me. My hypothesis is that this links in more with the disposition to authoritarianism by conservatives, but it’s still weird.
ETA: Magellan, what do you like about America?
A guy who makes a billion dollars selling weightlifting equipment probably should. At a minimum, he shouldn’t be bitching about a tiny increase in his taxes that go to maintaining our gravitational infrastructure.
Anyway, this isn’t really about Obama taking credit away from businessmen. It’s about Republicans giving too much credit to businessmen. Acting as though they are untouchable “job creators” who will drive the economy out of the doldrums by virtue of their bootstrappy awesomeness, if we just cut their taxes again. Obama is reminding them that no man, or company, is an island.
Exactly. Romney’s statement was an upbeat and positive one. He wasn’t belittling the athletes. He wasn’t putting them down.
Obama was.
It’s amazing that so many can’t see that simple truth.
I hope Obama supporters spread that video far and wide. Romney comes across well in it. Meanwhile, anyone who hears that Obama quote will think less of him, even with the full context.
Go ahead and base your campaign on one comment taken out of context. This might be just a successful a tactic as the 2008 “cling to guns and religion” frenzy.
Meh. They just took over the world the Titans had built.
This is bizarre. They said the same thing. You interpret one as debasing athletes and the other as upraising them simply based on your own political associations. You think Obama must have been belittling people, since you think that’s just the kind of guy he is. Mutatis mutandis for Romney.
But what you should do is actually read what they actually said, and interpret the meaning of the words they spoke. Then you might be in a position to learn about the world around you instead of projecting your own prejudices onto your perceptions.
One thing that is both funny and starkly illustrative of the fucking point is the difficulty that Romney is having as he goes around pointing to businesses to illustrate his point. From the incomparable Steve Benen at Maddow Blog:
The guy cannot apparently even select any examples of businesses or entrepreneurs who have not directly benefited from support or assistance from US taxpayers.
You’re welcome.
I’m not running Romney’s campaign. But if I were, I wouldn’t base my campaign off of this one comment.
However, since this thread is about the comment, I’m discussing it here. The reason I come out of lurker mode is usually when I’m exasperated by the lack of understanding on the SDMB about a simple concept such as this because of the overwhelming groupthink. It’s not a big deal, but it was a poor statement for him to make. That’s all.
I admit it when Romney messes up. It’s funny you can’t do the same.
I see what you did there.
What, for you it’s just about making sure not to say things that can be sound-bitten out of context?
Yeah, sure, I’ll cop to that on behalf of Obama. He should be more careful not to say things that, when taken out of context, can be misconstrued. All politicians know this, and he could have done a better job.
That’s seriously all it’s about for you? Not who is right about economics or policy, but who is the more skillful politician?
Okay. Whatever floats your boat.
I’ll make an honest effort to help you understand.
Here is Romey’s:
See how Romney’s statement is praising the athletes, without lecturing them? Without speaking down to them and disparaging them? It doesn’t share the spirit of Obama’s message at all. He’s not putting words in their mouths. He doesn’t chastise them.
Here is Obama’s quote:
Do I really need to go through this and point out all the parts that are disparaging towards the business owners that aren’t there in Romney’s? Can you truly not see them? If so, it’s not be who’s blinded by partisanship.
No. I don’t think this, which is why I never said it.
He’s a conservative. He independently floats his own boat. You want to suggest that the water has something to do with it? Socialist!
Where did that text of the Romney speech come from? It is different than the one linked a few pages back.
Just one person’s view but at the presidential level I’ve voted for two libertarians, three republicans and four democrats. I don’t think of myself as partisan and I don’t see the big insult to business.
It looks like you were trying to do something a little tricksy, but didn’t follow through? Or something? I’m not sure what to make of your post TBH. I’ll go perform the trick I think you were trying to do, and see if it makes your point for you or not.
Well never mind, on further consideration I’m not sure what you were trying to do at all.
But I think your point is that Obama’s speech should be primarily seen as disparaging because it talks about some hypothetical business owners who don’t give the infrastructure builders etc. enough credit.
It’s true that Romney’s speech presumes all Olympians know they didn’t get there by themselves, while Obama’s speech presumes some business owners think they got there by themselves.
The presumption in Obama’s speech seems uncontroversial true, though. So you’re not worried about whether he’s right–you’re more interested in what the psychological consequences of his manner of presentation might be. As before, I’d say that for you, the question seems to be more one of evaluating effectiveness of speechmaking, than evaluating strength of argument. Fair enough–you can be interested in whatever you’re interested in. But to me it seems irrelevant. And the great majority of the discussion I’ve seen has been oriented on the question of whether what Obama and Romney said were correct, and whether they mean the same thing or not–not on how various audiences will feel about what they said. I don’t care how audiences will feel about what they said. I care about whether they’re right. And they were both right–but Romney is wrong when he pretends Obama is wrong.
Wow. That’s not an honest effort, but a patently dishonest effort. That’s moving beyond the realm of acceptable, in my opinion. Falsely presenting a quote as coming from a particular person… yeeesh!
Meh. I think he was not intending anyone to be “fooled”, I think he was trying to make a point through the parallel substitutions.
Yeah, I was going to mock up Romney’s speech to make it as insulting to athletes as Obama’s was to business owners. But, I didn’t have time because something called me away. I meant to just post the vanilla speech there and maybe get back to altering it later. Copy paste wasn’t my friend, apparently.