Fox News’ Steve Doocy was interviewing Mitt Romney and quoted President Obama as saying, “unlike some people, I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth.” Unfortunately, that’s not what Obama said… While Obama did say, “I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mounth…,” Doocy added on, “unlike some people” while making it seem like a dig at Romney.
Romney took Doocy’s word for it and had this to say in response:
Well, you know, the President is really taking aim at anybody he can find these days. In fact, in my case, I’m certainly not going to apologize for my dad and his success in life. He was born poor. He worked his way to become very successful despite the fact that he didn’t have a college degree. And one of the things he wanted to do was provide for me and for my brother and sisters.
I’m not going to apologize for my dad’s success, but I know the president likes to attack fellow Americans.
The damage wasn’t isolated to Fox News… The Washington Post, New York Post and Ann Coulter all furthered the spread of misinformation… Since Obama has made similar statements (without “unlike some people”) in the past, there is little reason to believe it was a dig at his opponent, unless you’re paranoid and/or delusional.
White House press secretary Jay Carney addressed the made-up quote:
And I suppose anybody who thinks it was a reference to them might be a little oversensitive, because — unless they think that when President Obama said it three years ago it was in reference to them
Doocy issued the following statement about the misquote:
“Last week, President Obama talked about not being born with a silver spoon in his mouth. That was interpreted as a big dig at Mitt Romney. When I was interviewing Governor Romney on this show, I asked him about it. However, I did some paraphrasing that seemed to misquote the president. So to be clear, the President’s exact quote was ‘I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth.’ And I hope that clears up any confusion.”
Not exactly an apology or even admission of guilt… he doesn’t denounce the interpretation of the actual quote as a dig at Romney – he only claims that his paraphrasing “seemed to misquote the president.” No, Steve, you did misquote the president. You were wrong to do so.