Karl Rove And “Build That” Context

Karl Rove, Fox News political analyst, wants viewers to know that President Obama's “build that” comments have not been taken out of context. Karl Rove, American Crossroads co-founder, has been busy taking those remarks out of context in political advertisements aimed at the president.

On the network's America Live this afternoon, Juan Williams harshly criticized conservatives for distorting President Obama's statement at a July rally that American business owners have benefited from “this unbelievable American system” in which the public funds transportation and education infrastructure. The right-wing, led by Fox News, has taken out of context Obama's statement from that speech that "[i]f you've got a business -- you didn't build that" to falsely suggest he was claiming that small business owners do not deserve any credit for their own success.

As Williams noted, this claim is “madness.” Numerous fact-checkers have harshly criticized the attack, noting that “when you read the full text of [Obama's] remarks, that quote distorts the meaning of Obama's claim.”

But appearing alongside Williams, Rove would have none of that: 

ROVE: Look, look, Juan says it's taken out of context. No, it isn't. Go look at the tape and make your own judgment. The president said exactly what Juan said, if you built a business, you didn't build that, someone else did.

Does Rove really want people to “look at the tape and make your own judgment” about Obama's comments? Based on the ads coming out of his super PAC, definitely not. 

Here's one Crossroads web video in which the admakers air a clip of Obama saying only “If you've got a business -- you didn't build that.  Somebody else made that happen.” The ad then features a variety of small business owners criticizing that snippet as an “insult.”

Here's another Crossroads ad citing that Obama remark as the “fumble of the week,” and pushing back against Obama's statement that his words had been taken “out of context” by... airing the same 14 words again.

Rove shouldn't worry though, he still has the support of his Fox colleague Sean Hannity, who says of the latter ad, “there's no slicing, no dicing, full context.”