The Media Research Center has long defended taking President Obama’s “you didn’t build that” comments out of context. The latest excuse: grammar.
In an Aug. 10 MRC TimesWatch post, Clay Waters berates a New York Times writer for accurately pointing out that Obama “was talking about roads and bridges, a point that was ignored” by his right-wing critics. Waters responded: “Really? If Obama really was talking about ‘roads and bridges,’ a plural phrase, why did he follow up with the word ‘that,’ which is singular?”
That’s right — Waters has to nitpick on grammar to justify distorting Obama’s remarks. Never mind the fact that Obama made his point clearer immediately after saying those words: “The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.”