apsies

The entire theme of tonight’s Republican convention session, “We Built It,” is inspired by a lie produced by Fox News. The idea that President Barack Obama said to small business owners, “you didn’t build that,” is a fabrication concocted through deceptive editing. What the president actually said, was “somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own.” Within two days of its first appearance on Fox, the channel had spent more than two hours repeating this lie. Even News Corp. Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch got in on the action, tweeting that “Obama went off script, showed real self i.e. government omnipotent, individuals secondary. Must be big damage.” Within a day of Fox airing the deceptively edited clip, Mitt Romney, the presumptive GOP nominee, had picked up on it, saying Obama’s statement was “insulting to every entrepreneur, every innovator in America and it’s wrong.” Romney also started running ads featuring the deception.