Two GOP candidates, Governor Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, have both utilized Barack Obama's comments made last weekend at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Hawaii.
OBAMA: Well, this is an issue, generally. I think it's important to remember that the United States is still the largest recipient of foreign investment in the world. And there are a lot of things that make foreign investors see the U.S. as a great opportunity -- our stability, our openness, our innovative free market culture.
But we've been a little bit lazy, I think, over the last couple of decades. We've kind of taken for granted -- well, people will want to come here and we aren't out there hungry, selling America and trying to attract new business into America. And so one of things that my administration has done is set up something called SelectUSA that organizes all the government agencies to work with state and local governments where they're seeking assistance from us, to go out there and make it easier for foreign investors to build a plant in the United States and put outstanding U.S. workers back to work in the United States of America.
Perry used Obama's reference in a campaign ad his campaign will be airing on national TV.
Video below titled "Lazy."
Mitt Romney used Obama's reference to America being lazy in a speech the following week where he said "Sometimes I just don’t think that President Obama understands America. He said that Americans are lazy. I don’t think that describes Americans."
The DNC, in damage control mode, are fighting back and claiming Romney and Perry are being "dishonest" in using Obama's lazy comment out of context, but this is not the first time Barack Obama has used this type of language.
Back in September 2011, Obama was was being interviewed by Jim Payne, an anchor for WESH television and Obama answered a question and referred to America as having gotten soft.
In his answer, Obama said: “The way I think about it is this is a great, great country that had gotten a little soft, and we didn’t have that same competitive edge we needed over the last couple of decades....
Also in September Obama told the Congressional Black Caucus "Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes. Shake it off. Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying. We are going to press on. We’ve got work to do, CBC.."
The DNC would have an easier time defending Barack Obama's public comments if he would stop insulting America, insulting Americans and attacking America defensively because he cannot admit his policies over the last nearly 3 years have failed.
[Update] I see via Twitter that Ace of Spades is making the same point about Obama's pattern of insulting Americans against Obama defenders.
(Updates and changes have been added to this post)
