“If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” When Barack Obama made this outrageous and foolish observation at a campaign appearance in Virginia on July 13, 2012, liberals instantly closed ranks, claiming that his phrasing was “inartful” but this his point was well-taken.
Last Friday, Hillary Clinton made nearly the same gaffe at a campaign event north of New York City, stating, “Don’t let anybody tell you that corporations and businesses create jobs.” Almost instantaneously, Democrats and the liberal media were on the case, trying to explain away her remark and emphasize the peril that awaits the GOP if they take her to task for her inartful comments.
CNBC Chief Washington Correspondent and New York Times columnist John Harwood tweeted this:
flapdoodle about HRC job-creation remarks about as close to nothing as “much ado about nothing” gets.
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) October 27, 2014
When challenged, he tried his hand at a little misdirection:
she’s said it in various ways (“It Takes a Village”) for 20 years. Dem saying corporate tax cuts won’t create jobs hardly new @PeeteySDee — John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) October 27, 2014
But Clinton said nothing about corporate tax cuts. And “It Takes a Village” was about childrearing, not tax policy or job creation. That point was driven home in a rebuttal tweet by Fox News Senior Political Analyst Brit Hume:
@JohnJHarwood @PeeteySDee Please. She flatly said businesses don’t create jobs. Went on to argue against business tax cuts. Nothing? Hardly.
— Brit Hume (@brithume) October 27, 2014
This ignited a lengthy Twitter war between Harwood, Hume, and other “Ds” and “Rs,” to use Harwood’s formulation.
But the story doesn’t end there. While the battle was raging, Clinton came out on Monday with her own defense of her remarks:
I short-handed this point the other day, so let me be absolutely clear about what I’ve been saying for a couple of decades.
Our economy grows when businesses and entrepreneurs create good-paying jobs here in America and workers and families are empowered to build from the bottom up and the middle out — not when we hand out tax breaks for corporations that outsource jobs or stash their profits overseas.
The highlighted words are a pithy omen of what to expect if she is elected president in 2016, but apart from that notice the contradictory claims. On Friday: Businesses don’t create jobs. On Monday: Businesses create jobs. Of course, I’m not quoting her directly, I’m “short-handing.”
Related Articles
- GOP’s giddiness over Hillary’s jobs gaffe will backfire
- Hillary Clinton: Businesses don’t create jobs; raising minimum wage does (Video)
- Video: Letterman mocks Obama on ISIS strategy — ‘Operation Hillary’s Problem’
- Big Dem ‘sugar daddies’ looking for a Hillary substitute
- Does Hillary support or oppose arming Syrian rebels? It depends on what is is
- Hillary’s cronies hid damaging Benghazi documents, claims former State Department official
- Did Sen. Tom Harkin bring Hillary’s presidential chances to a screeching halt? (Video)
- Hillary Clinton quietly scrubs ‘remarks’ she made from her website
- Just in time for her 2016 campaign, Hillary gets a new wave of small-screen avatars