Who said, "the fundamentals of the economy are sound," from the Obama admin? WTF?

[Blue_Roses]

I heard Whoopi talking about it on the "view" this am. WTF? Meghan McCain said her dad felt vindicated :wtf: is going on? I haven't heard that recently. :shrug:

[firedupdem]

1. I read that faux news did a cut and paste job on Biden. Not sure

though.

[DJ13]

2. Faux took a Biden quote about McCain from the GE out of context

It was NOT a direct statement (nor recent statement) made by Joe.

Just another right wing hit piece.

[Fleshdancer]

3. Faux decided to cut up an old Biden video to make it seem like he said this...

This was from a video of Biden on the campaign trail 6 months ago telling his audience that McCain said "the fundamentals of the economy are sound". Faux decided to cut out the "McCain said" part and leave the rest to make it appear that Biden is now saying this.

On edit:

I hope Biden comes out swinging against this BS

[babylonsister]

4. Santorum...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=5240642

[ErinBerin84]

5. Obama did say something

But, didn't sound like what McCain said to me...and obviously, we weren't in a process of digging ourselves out of the ditch last September. Gibbs explains it a bit today in the briefing. The Biden thing was separate. Basically, Obama was trying to sound a bit more upbeat about the prospect that the stim would help (seeming to respond to critque that he was talking down the economy), and because he used some similar language as McCain, that turned into the RW talking point of the day. Remember how McCain (after saying for MONTHS, and on the day the stock market tanked big time) said simply "The fundamentals of our economy are strong", and later his campaign decided to do some damage control with "Umm...I meant we have great workers! Yeah. So um, Obama attacking me for saying this, is attacking workers!" Obama said something about workers in the United States that sounded similar to the damage control McCain quote. Another overblown nontroversy.

[FrenchieCat]

6. Somebody needs to hand megan a clue.

Hint, she is now 6 months older and there is a new President in town.

[PBS Poll-435]

7. Obama said that we need to identify the portions of the economy that were fundamentally strong

He didn't say that the fundamentals of the economy were strong.

[moundsview]

8. Christina Romer

But on Sunday, that optimistic message came from economic adviser Christina Romer. When asked during an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press if the fundamentals of the economy were sound, she replied: "Of course they are sound."

"The fundamentals are sound in the sense that the American workers are sound, we have a good capital stock, we have good technology," she said. "We know that — that temporarily we're in a mess, right? We've seen huge job loss, we've seen very large falls in GDP. So certainly in the short run we're in a — in a bad situation."

Just a week ago, White House Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag declared that "fundamentally, the economy is weak." Days later, Obama told reporters he was confident in the economy

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-03-15-dem-economy_N.htm

And in the audio she sounds like a ditz. Not at all helpful.

[ErinBerin84]

10. She sounds fine to me.

Though maybe everyone should just stop using the "fundamentals" word. Fundamentally vs fundamentals, you know. It confuses people, especially the hack reporters like David Gregory who are still desperate for McCain "vindication". First it was Obama is "talking down the economy", now they are trying to say he is "talking up the economy". Whatever.

[moundsview]

23. I beg to differ

But to each their own. Maybe Obama could have found a better spokes person.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/29705783#29705783

[ErinBerin84]

24. lol

Beg all you would like. Hopefully, the advisors will get increasingly better about their messaging as time goes on, and learn to reject the premise of some of the questions as Gibbs does.

[FrenchieCat]

11. What part of 6 months ago, and a different President does one not understand around here?

Fuck how it "sounds".....cause we can't let the media
believe we are that mindless.

Far as they were concerned, John Kerry's joke was an Outrage!

[masuki bance]

13. This wasn't 6mos ago, it was yesterday

[ErinBerin84]

19. I think she meant, McCain said that the

fundamentals were strong during the Bush presidency, six months ago...as Gibbs said, when the question was action vs inaction. McCain supported a lot of Bush's economic policies, so that could be seen as "inaction" vs trying something different. Even when Romer says the fundamentals, at least she indicates that there is still a big mess, which McCain seemed kind of confused about at the time, but that it would evetually get better. Obama and his economic advisors are speaking off of the "now that the stimulus has passed, prospects are looking up that the economy will improve in time" perspective. Whatever. It's semantics, but I got the difference. Guess it's in the eye of the beholder.

Here is the thing. If McCain had said ALL along, during the campaign, that by fundamentals he meant "workers, technology, etc", then it might be different. But he didn't really clarify until he HAD to, when the mess was too apparent to dismiss, and THEN he claimed that he had meant that by fundamentals all along. I never believed that that was what he meant. Especially with Gramm as an advisor. Oh well, I don't really care that the McCains feel vindicated on their imaginary victories. We pawned them, they can take anything that makes them feel better about that at this point. We still won.

[Igel]

28. The problem is that what she mentioned hasn't changed much.

"The fundamentals are sound in the sense that the American workers are sound, we have a good capital stock, we have good technology."

American workers are really different now from how they were 6 months ago? How so?

The capital stock--by which I assume she means the actual buildings and machinery--has changed?

The technology's changed?

Then she clarifies, saying we're in a bit of a mess. The mess was certainly starting building up steam 6 months ago.

At the time economists had less derision--apart from politically minded ones--and more questions. "Fundamentals" doesn't have a single definition, which is why Romer had to say what she understood it to mean. When McCain spoke last summer, you could agree or disagree with equal accuracy, depending upon what you understood him to mean.

[backscatter712]

9. That was from a FAUX Noise out-of-context clip of Biden.

They cut out the part that showed that Biden was quoting John McCain.

[masuki bance]

12. Economic adviser Christina Romer said it on MTP

But on Sunday, that optimistic message came from economic adviser Christina Romer. When asked during an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" if the fundamentals of the economy were sound, she replied: "Of course they are sound."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090315/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_economy;_ylt=ApkWKVgwhJdlLJ9VGymVs0xp24cA

[Clio the Leo]

14. They're talking about something the President said Friday (video) .....

And I CRINGED when I heard it.....

“There are a lot of individual families who are experiencing incredible pain and hardship right now.”

“But if we are keeping focused on all the fundamentally sound aspects of our economy,” he added, “all the outstanding companies, workers, all the innovation and dynamism in this economy, then we’re going to get through this. And I’m very confident about that.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/us/politics/14message.html

He was NOT saying the same thing McCain said (and to be fair, it wasn't so much that McCain said the wrong thing as he said it at the wrong TIME.)

video from Meet the Press: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLr5VfOAbmw

[polichick]

16. I cringed too because it was so easy for Republicans to twist.

[LooseWilly]

15. Obama said "We need to stay focused of the fundamentals of the economy that are strong..."

I'm not sure where he said it... and I'm not certain of the word "focused"... but then David Gregory was juxtaposing what Obama had said with what McCain had said on Meet the Press yesterday.

It would appear that everyone is happy to just ride David Gregory's sloppy syntax parsing bus.

As I parse it, they're actually two different things that sound similar because they use nearly the same words. Word order can change meanings of sentences though.

"The fundamentals of the economy are strong"- McCain's comment, suggests that all the fundamentals of the economy are strong.

"... on the fundamentals of the economy that are strong..." (italics added by me)- Obama's statement, actually qualifies (with the "that") the strongness as applying to some of the fundamentals... rather than applying universally to all of the fundamentals.

What a difference an extra word can make in a sentence...

Mind you, I'm not sure what the greater context was in which Obama said this, and I'm not sure if that was just a slip, with those words happening to come out in that order simply because they've been thrown around so much in the last six months... and I doubt that any further sentences would likely have come out of his mouth with those words in such close proximity...
I suspect that Obama was trying to point out that some of the fundamentals of the economy (whatever that phrase is really supposed to mean) are strong... and probably went on to say something about how, by simultaneously trying to prop up the not strong fundamentals, and at the same time keeping an eye on the strong fundamentals to be sure that they don't begin to suffer... that the economy can recover basic soundness (again, whatever that really means).

[ladjf]

20. As I recall, your quote was exactly what Obama said yesterday.

I was not paying close attention until I heard the "economy" and "sound" together in a sentence. But I realized that he was not giving a blanket "economy is sound" but rather that some sectors of the economy are sound.

Gibbs failed to point this out in the press conference today when a question about was asked. The reporter's question was an inaccurate quote of what Obama said.

[Uzybone]

17. Why are we so willing to eat media lies?

The media lies more than they tell the truth.

[Cha]

21. I, for one, am not willing. The corporatemediawhores

have to prove it to me..otherwise I assume they're lying and they've got the track record to verify it.

[Blue_Roses]

27. I don't...

in fact, I don't believe half of what they say. That's why I also come here to see what's actually been said. This is a great resource to sort out the REAL truth of what is said and then you have the ammunition to pull from when someone spews these half-truths.

[Uzybone]

18. dupe

n/t

[Thrill]

22. Read the full quote from Romer AND Obama

The media is so full of shit.

[Life Long Dem]

25. What it means is,

The President Obama searched high and low to build a fundamentally sound area within the economy. And he said he has built from this fundamentally sound base. Comprehende amigo?

Actually, he built from an area that was fundamentally sound. Which still is not the same.

[Imagevision]

26. portions of the economy that are fundamentally strong? Big Oil...