WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — Obama didn’t let go of his attack on McCain in Williamsport yesterday afternoon, continuing to criticize the Republican nominee for a comment that he made about the economy making progress under George W. Bush.
“Our economy is in shambles,” Obama said before listing off statistics about how a community likes Williamsport had been affected over the last few years, citing losses in manufacturing jobs at sewing plants and window plants in the area.
“Lycoming County unemployment is at its highest point in three years and family incomes aren’t keeping up with the rest of the country,” Obama said. (Williamsport is in Lycoming.)
“Now, that’s what’s going on here, but I don’t need to tell you this, it’s going on all across the country. John McCain yesterday said that we are, that, that during George Bush’s tenure, the economy actually made great progress. That’s his quote,” Obama said.
However, the attack, like the one earlier today parsed McCain’s comments, quoting him on saying that the economy had grown but not including the fact that McCain acknowledged job losses and had said that the economic statistics brought “no comfort” to those suffering the most from the recent downturn.
Obama, himself, earlier in the day at a town hall in Erie, also acknowledged that the economy had made progress.
“Our economy actually expanded over the last seven years, that’s true,” he said, before going on to talk about how the expansion was unprecedented because wages had not increased along with the rise in GDP.
Obama, parsing McCain’s statements yesterday, added: “Now, keep in mind, this is a guy who called me out of touch.”
Thankfully as you can see from the bolded part of what I quoted, MSNBC called Obama out on what they imply is a gross distortion of McCain’s comments on the economy. The following video cuts right to the core of Obama’s attack, and proves that it’s more than just a gross distortion – it’s an outright lie (via Instapundit):
Infuriating.