Hot Airteurism of the Day

This is what happens when you're committed to Obama Derangement Syndrome and feel the need to feed your readers with a daily dose of Obama's-the-worst content. You kind of just make stuff up.

At Hor Air, Ed Morrissey's Obamateurism of the Day entry today is supposed to make fun of Obama for “shooting his mouth off” about the conservative advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity, and claiming it's filled with “foreigners.” To highlight Obama's supposed blunder, Hot Air relays on a Fox News report (mistake number one) and highlights this passage:

Citing the recent Supreme Court decision that loosened campaign finance rules, he claimed “groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity” could run ads against Democratic candidates with impunity. The concern is that an organization like Americans for Prosperity could dump millions into an election to sway voters without the voters ever knowing who's behind it all.

The punchline [emphasis added]:

Obama did hit pointedly one aspect of the conservative group. Americans for Prosperity was founded by billionaire David Koch of oil company Koch Industries. Koch and his company, however, are American.

Ha-ha. Obama got it wrong when he suggested AFP wasn't based in America.

Except that, that's not what Obama said. Let's look again at the passage from Obama's comments:

“And they don't have to say who exactly the Americans for Prosperity are. You don't know if it's a foreign-controlled corporation. You don't know if it's a big oil company or a big bank. You don't know if it's a insurance company that wants to see some of the provisions in health reform repealed because it's good for their bottom line, even if it's not good for the American people,” Obama said. “A Supreme Court decision allowed this to happen. And we tried to fix it, just by saying disclose what's going on, and making sure that foreign companies can't influence our elections.”

Clearly, Obama didn't say AFP was foreign-controlled. He correctly pointed out that because of the recent Supreme Court ruling you (i.e. voters) don't know if AFP is foreign-controlled. Just like you don't know if AFP is a bank, oil company or insurance giant. (I'm pretty sure Obama knows AFP is not in the insurance, banking and drilling business.)

Lesson learned? Beware the dangers of ODS. Especially before you go shooting your mouth off.