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Dear Mitt Romney: Attack!
Media Matters’ Spin Shows Just How Vulerable Barack Obama Is

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  July 18th, 2012 at 08:57 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Just how badly did Barack Obama hurt himself in Roanoke, Virginia on Friday? Well, consider that his campaign has desperately been trying to walk back his speech. Now even Media Matters is desperately trying to spin the President out of context to fix what he said.

In Roanoke, the President said,

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

Media Matters now claims I took the President out of context and the President really was only talking about roads and bridges. But that’s not what the President was talking about. Examine both paragraphs of his speech and he really was parroting grade school Marxism.

By the way, the President and Media Matters must be stupid if he really was just talking about infrastructure. Why? Because infrastructure is paid for with the gas tax. The more gas you use, the more you pay in taxes. So business owners are already paying their fair share there.

Now, the President may be ignorant about job creation, but he’s not a stupid guy.

That’s why Media Matters and the Democrats are now intentionally taking the President out of context. Because, in full context, the President was saying that the more successful you are, the more you owe to the government because of your success. And only people who embrace Marxist originated economic philosophies think that.

That the President, Democrats, and Media Matters are scrambling to distort what Barack Obama actually said and meant is a strong signal for Team Romney and the GOP that they should put a spotlight on this and attack. John Sununu was right. Barack Obama really is woefully ignorant about the American way of job creation. He’s all ivory tower academic.

By the way, the most interesting part of this whole business is how much people are now willing to accept that President Obama and his economics teams lean more toward Marx and less toward Adam Smith.

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  • funwithknives

    about The American Economy can be turned onto him ,’cause he’s an Economic Illiterate. If the current example is as good as it gets, pray tell lets us ‘pine’ that he continues.

    Time and again he has ‘spoken out’ and proved, by his own less-than-insightful prose, he know squat about ‘Many Things”.

    Witness the constant parsing, ‘walking back’ and sometimes simply out-of context-renderings by Barry’s Kids and Their Playmates.

    If he doesn’t ‘hate’ America, I do wish he’d stop *Hearting* it so much.
    I’ve only got so much bile to spare…..and it shore-do taste icky.

  • jaykali

    Bc you don’t get carefully ‘calibrated’ Obama, you get off-the-cuff stuff that reveals what he really thinks. Like maybe we should /spread some of that wealth around/ Mr. Joe the Plummer, bc obviously he has some wealth left over.

    Even aside from the one line ab ‘you didn’t create that’ the fuller context is worse and that’s what makes this great. Those couple of paragraphs Erik included are very revealing. It just shows the attitude of Obama that everything good comes from govt.

  • renl57

    And she went even further:

    “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there — good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that maurauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory… Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea — God Bless! Keep a Big Hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/20/1018700/-Warren-Tells-It-Like-it-Is-No-One-in-This-Country-Got-Rich-on-his-Own

    And notice that left-wing Daily KOS didn’t claim that *her* remarks were taken out of context.

    Instead, they fell in love with those remarks, exactly as they were stated:

    “She is brilliant at explaining rather complicated things.”

    “I am bowled over by Ms Warren, and have been since the first time I heard her, probably on the Daily Show. She epitomizes intelligence and integrity.”

    “I’ve never seen a better, clearer explanation of why the super wealthy are full of $h!4 — they did not get their on their own. God I love this woman!!!!”

    So the next time anybody says that Obama’s remarks were taken out of context, show them this Daily KOS diary–and the enthusiastic reaction of the Left to this anticapitalist concept.

  • Tbone

    Anyone who pays for a business license should vote for Romney.

    In fact, Romney should run this ad.

    “If you pay for a business license, President Obama says that if you succeed, thank the government, if you fail, blame yourself and you can’t even collect unemployment insurance.”

  • http://www.tooncesthecat.wordpress.com tooncesthecat

    Obama not only exposed his ignorance on how jobs are created, he also demonstrated his ignorance of the role of the federal government and the state governments. Romney should launch a second line of attack on this issue. It is state governments that create and maintain public schools, universities, technical and community colleges. The federal government didn’t do that nor should it. If you had a great teacher, she was hired by your local school district, not some bureaucrat in Washington. Likewise, roads and bridges are built and maintained by the states, not the federal government. The same is true of most of our airports and hospitals. When your home or business catches on fire, you don’t call Washington. Firefighters and Police Officers are hired by local governments. Obama persistently confuses these facts. And Romney should call him out on it.

  • jaykali

    It wasn’t created by the gov’t for companies to make money as if the F-ING GOVT could have the foresight to actually create something useful ON PURPOSE. An early version of the version of the Internet was created by the military – and then a bunch of iterations later + all of the investment required to set up Internet Providers all over the world eventually creates this network of computers that forms the Internet as we know it today.

    It’s retarded to think that the Internet as we know today just sprung out of the ground bc a politician decided to throw research money at ‘computing’ and some time later you have the Internet.

  • reggie1

    Almost as scary to me as Obama’s economic ignorance is Team Romney’s shallow response. My head is going to explode with all of the missed opportunities I am seeing.

    And now their distortion of Obama’s quotes, taking them from their daily routine of distorting Romney’s quotes, reveals not only an opening, but where they know they are weak.

    I picture two prize fighters, and one keeps pounding at the other’s rib cage because he craked his rib there in a previous bout. Pound on it!

  • kentucky

    that referred to “the felony that Mitt Romney may have committed” and morphed Romney into an image of Richard Nixon and said “He’s not a crook, right?” It actually showed headlines of articles such as one from CNN titled “Is Romney A Felon?”, which if memory serves was an article debunking the Obama line.

    Moving beyond Obama’s out of control false choice rhetoric and running straight for innuendo and slander. Granted, not as disgraceful as “General Betray-us”, but isn’t this something that is subject to a cease and desist demand?

  • commonsenseobserver

    Nauseating. Disgusting. Offensive.

    Sad.

    Get John McCain here

    and ask him how he managed to lose

    to this guy.

  • dodgeone

    that we have a lot of people who believe everything that the Democrat party or O’s media tells them.

  • Common_Cents

    It would be a major viral idea.

    “I built it, Barack didn’t.”

    What Romney should counter with is, WHO PAID THE TEACHERS? WHO PAID FOR THE ROADS? etc…. TAXPAYERS! especially hard working successful business owners.

  • funwithknives

    and repeating a proven lie only appeals to the very few who actually watch/listen/participate in M/O dot org.

    How many of The Progressive 20% use this cesspool for all their info?
    The more it’s ” out there” the more light is cast and it just gets goofier.
    Don’t Demand Anything. Call em out and tell them to prove it to a totally random jury, using preponderance, on a bet.
    Make the stakes : ‘high, as a castle in the sky’.

    No proof , $10 million to the U S O. In cash, on C-Span where all can see.
    Bill Maher will hand it over if/when The DNC loses.
    The Credits will feature/backround Rosanne Barr, sweeping the floors…….and being the litter.

  • izoneguy

  • cbartlett

    I would also suggest adding an elaborated version of Tbones’ statement at the end:

    “And if my business fails due to this clueless President’s failed economic policies, I cannot collect unemployment like all of my employees. Would you prefer that I continue to pay people to work for me or send them to the unemployment line?”

    I doubt that most people realize that most self-employed business owners do not qualify for unemployment benefits. Just like they do not understand the many, many other financial, security and health sacrifices most of them make to be successful.

  • teaforme2012

    I saw that ad, too. It’s un-American to compare a presidential candidate in 2012 to Richard Nixon, but what can you expect from that liberal septic tank?

  • ceili_dancer

    he had, where he stated something like, there comes a point where you made more than enough money. I think it was April of last year.

  • codenametimna

    Barack Obama went off teleprompter when he made those statements. In other words, he was giving his real thoughts and opinions instead of his usual teleprompter scripted message that are written for him in advance.

    This further demonstrates that Barack Obama is really the one who is “out of touch” with mainstream America. In my opinion, Obama is a bona fide Marxist/Socialist/Communist – yeah, you read that right – who has been insulated all his life in the Marxist/Socialist/Communist doctrine(s), drilled into him at a very young age through his communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis, his communist mother Stanley Ann Dunham and various miscreants like unrepentant domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn and also his Marxist ‘whitey and Jew hating’ mentor – Jeremiah “goddam America” Wright. David Axelrod also has communist ties but you’d never know it because the Lamestream media has tried to cover it up.

    Barack Obama is actually “anti-American” and these latest statements on “Friday the 13th” further prove that point. Barack Obama wants to “transform” America, not make it better. He has implemented Socialist/Marxist/Communist policies that are destroying the American economy, not prospering it. His socialist healthcare monstrosity called Obamatax will “destroy” competent healthcare in America, not make it better. His onerous, over-burdensome regulations are “strangling” the economy and businesses, not encouraging them to grow or thrive. Obama’s anti-energy policies are making America more “dependent” on foreign sources of energy, not the reverse i.e. not more energy independent.

    Obama’s “war” on religious liberty is an assault on the Constitution and the First Amendment. His “class warfare” mentality is dividing the country, not healing it. His onerous foreign policy initiatives have hindered our relations in the Middle East and have diminished and harmed our relations with our friends and allies.

    America needs to WAKE UP! A vote for Mitt Romney is a vote for America. On the other hand, a vote for Barack Hussein Obama is a vote for “more of the same, only much much worse” if he happens to get reelected. That’s because Obama will “double down” on the same Marxist/Socialist/Communist policies that are currently in the process of destroying America. You heard that right. Obama is waging “war” on religious liberty and thereby assaulting the Constitution and the First Amendment. Obama is waging “class warfare” on the American people and thereby dividing the nation and polarizing its citizens. If Obama gets reelected he will no doubt unleash the ‘hounds of hell’ in an all out assault on freedom and liberty and the US Constitution. He would continue to “trample” the Constitution (like he’s doing right now) even while retaining his “dictator” status as America’s first “Dictator in Chief.” If the American people are stupid enough to reelect Barack Obama then they will have gotten what they deserve and it won’t be a pretty sight to behold I can assure you that right now.

    Obama has never done an honest days work in his life and his constant demonizing of American ideals and destructive partisan politics are dividing the country, killing the economy, and “bankrupting” the United States of America at breakneck speed. If the American people want more of that, then be my guest. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

  • ceili_dancer

    That part came off teleprompter.

  • ceili_dancer

    Where she asked now Senator(darn it) Blumenthal how a job is created. It was funny watching him squirm with having no clue on how new jobs are created out of a need for the business to expand to create a more profitable atmosphere. The same really can be done to Obama without much changing.
    His only answer would be government control and spending that would create a false demand that would have nothing to do with the actual economy.

  • wintermute

    nt

  • Repair_Man_Jack

    So it must be Gospel truth. <Sarcasm off…

  • fightnright

    degrading achievement and justifying mediocrity and dependency, it’s also a heads up to conservatives reminding us of a key dynamic of any Presidential race.

    The thug-in-chief doesn’t give a d@mn about going off teleprompter or off point to the new coalition of moochers and opportunists the far left is assembling as their November base. Obama’s stump speeches are all about moving his couch potatoes to the polls. Getting out *our* base will probably be more critical to this election than usual.

    The number of voters who prefer to go through the revolving door of life on someone else’s push is rapidly growing due to a feeding frenzy sustained by the left’s encouragement. The populist rhetoric is easy for a depressed populace to settle for, and as satisfying as junk food. So I’m not sure how effective even Mitt’s best efforts to win over dithering independents with impressive memes will be in this contest.

    With a great turnout, Mitt’s chances will be good. Right-wing movements to motivate Romney’s team to attack mode are vital, but the Dems are willing – eager – to lie and cheat their way through the ad wars for a win. I think this year more than ever, our own get-out-the-vote strategy, organization and participation will determine the outcome.

  • romeg

    of their ignorance and stupidity or their willingness to say stupid things in order to appeal to ignorant voters.

    They would have you believe that Government created law enforcement and courts and built infrastructure so that entrepreneurs could then come and build the economy.

    In reality, law enforcement and courts were invented in response to the problem of entrepreneurs dealing with criminals and miscreants in their own way and on their own terms. IOW courts and laws evolved from the needs of civil society, not the other way around.

    Roads, bridges, canals and other infrastructure came into existence in much the same way. Prior to the automobile, there was little need for highways, bridges, tunnels and the like. But as the demand for these personal transportation machines grew, so did the need for infrastructure to support them. Again, the people responded to the needs of society that resulted from commercial enterprise by empowering its servant, the Government, to provide that infrastructure.

    The education system in this country used to be completely private. Again, the government run education system grew from the need for educated citizens to carry on commerce; In fact, it is commerce that lead to the founding of this nation in the first place.

    The Massachusetts Bay Colony was a commercial enterprise. Its founding was to serve the interests and needs of investors.

    Columbus was an entrepreneur; an educated and very intelligent individual who persuaded the Royal family of Spain to underwrite his explorations seeking a less costly route to the riches of India.

    But don’t tell Elizabeth Warren any of that. She might be offended at the mention of the name Christopher Columbus.

  • http://lukos.com Ed54

    from now til November. Not really sure why we need to say much else. Let his own words beat him.

  • APA Guy

    …and Romney doesn’t even need to do it. A Super PAC could put together ads with business owners asking that very question…then run the ads from now to November.

    Watch Obama’s JAR sink like a rock after they do. Seriously, send this idea to Romney’s people or to a Super PAC. It needs to be done.

  • acat

    Local small business owner puts up a sign like this:

    Just print it out on standard paper, tape the business owners’ picture over the clip-art, and hang on the wall.

    Mew

  • APA Guy

    I’m sure the administration won’t mind. They don’t seem to care when I badmouth Obama on the radio since they keep referring media people to me :)

  • jimmaloney

    that maurauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory…now look.

    ,,,fast forward to the flash mob that tore up a Walmart yesterday in Jacksonville and tell me the reference to one was not the precursor to the other…

    …or what will happen in November when Clown-In-Chief get tossed on his keister

  • acat

    If you’re a PC, just right-click, save image as. Poof, yours.

    If you’re a Mac … I *think* it’s command-click… I’d go validate, but my macbook disappeared into the kid’s room (cave?) a while ago, and I’m not going to go digging for it.

    I borrowed the clip-art, and gift the rest (gee, 20 words?) to the universe.

    Mew

  • libertariansoc

    The internet and web was basically funded and developed gov’t (State, Federal, and international) + Gov’t/Defense Contractors + Hackers. ISP’s didn’t really have anything to do with it. Hackers figured out they could piggyback it on any existing infrastructure (phone, radio, tv, satellite etc.).

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_radio

  • APA Guy

    I don’t want anyone to miss it when they come into the office.

  • APA Guy

    Into the office it goes first thing tomorrow…heh heh

  • acat

    Thought about that after the fact …

    Mew

  • CincoSolas_del_Bronx

    Fuled. Don’t want folks thinkin’ we doesn’t know who Aunt Trepanure is.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    nt

  • acat

    (revised)

    Mew

  • acat

    Mew

  • fightnright

    for every small business owner who goes to the polls, their votes are cancelled out a hundredfold by too many voters who feel (and are being taught by the Administration) that not only working for large corporations and *really* rich guys like Romney, but also working for small businesses at an entry wage is *slavery*. And I ran a small business myself, so I was at the receiving end of that negativity.

    Especially for many of the young generation who grew up materially very well provided for in even lower middle class homes, the concept of getting up in the morning just to earn their bread and butter seems like losing their former carefree existence. Trying to convince inner city dwellers, even those who have been most adversely affected by Obamanomics that rising at dawn to board crowded public transport to have a chance to work themselves up the ladder of success is tough.

    In an election like this, we can’t just target the small business owners, they KNOW that their personal liberty and freedom relies on the work which gives them independence from the state. We vote for the core values of conservatism that save us from a master/slave relationship with the state. But Obama’s message of passivity and ease is beguiling. What message can we send to the state-educated which will communicate these crucial values to those who are being conditioned to believe that the hard work of maintaining liberty is slavery itself?

  • westcoastpatriette

    was gonna point out the typo remained in the revised edition but didn’t have the heart to go after you. Thought Cinco might later. :)

  • aesthete
  • acat

    It just doesn’t happen nearly as often as some of our favorite trolls would like …

    Mew

  • tnfriendofcoal101368

    I thought she was still on a 2 week hold?

  • Vegas_Rick

    he hadn’t heard it. He’s one of those guys who, while not an Obama supporter, bent over backwards to give Dear Ruler the benefit of the doubt.

    No more.

    When I go back next week, I’m taking the above poster with me. I guarandamnty he will post it in his office.

    He was PISSED!

  • acat

    that *doesn’t* have a typo!

    Mew

  • acat

    Obama hasn’t released all of his returns either, y’know …

    Mew

  • teaforme2012

    I can tell you that other people certainly helped, but the government had nothing to do with my success. There were times when the government was an actual hinderance, though.

    With that said, I’m wearing a bit thin on this “job creator” nonsense. I don’t hire anyone unless I can’t meet demands for the products I sell. Hiring is a last resort. I don’t decide to hire or not hire employees based on favorable tax rates or health benefits. Romney seems to understand bottom line business thinking, but John Boehner plays right into the hands of the whiny liberals with his overly simplistic and dishonest rants about job creation. I don’t make yachts. I make products that average Americans want, and I do better when more people can afford to buy them, not when I pay 2 percent less taxes.

  • independentmike

    I hope someone in the GO P is thinking about this question. Let’s assume that Romney’s bends to the pressure to release his tax returns and that he releases them before the convention. If there’s information in Romney’s tax returns that cripples him as a candidate, is the GOP prepared to nominate someone else at the convention?

    One would have to believe that there’s something in his unreleased tax returns that Romney does not want to see made public. Perhaps Romney will be able to ride this out and can get away with not releasing more tax returns. After all, Robert F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy never released their tax returns. Reid and Pelosi have not released their tax returns. Most members of Congress don’t release their tax returns.

    But, if his refusal to release more tax returns starts to seriously hurt him and it turns out there’s badly damaging info in those returns, then the GOP had better be prepared to nominate someone else.

  • gekster

    One would have to believe Romney is a criminal to even think that.
    I don’t think so.
    Besides a few stupid Governors, only leftist idiots are concerned about his tax returns.
    He has released all the returns required by law.
    So the question now would be, are you a Governor.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    What would be great for your business, a growing economy and more aftertax income, would also be good for everyone else.

    (except the professional political class I guess)

  • http://www.mtgriffith.com independentmike

    I hope you’re right and that this pointless issue fizzles out soon.

    I’m just saying that if Romney’s refusal to release starts to seriously hurt him and he bends to the pressure to release and it turns out there is badly damaging info in those returns, the GOP may very well need to nominate someone else.

    For that matter, if it turns out that Romney’s refusal to release hurts him badly, this, too, may be reason for the GOP to consider nominating someone else.

    I hope neither scenario happens and that this diversionary issue just goes away.

  • http://www.mtgriffith.com independentmike

    Ok, I thought the Reply To This button above the message was to reply to the message below it. Now I know better!

    I hope you’re right and that this pointless issue fizzles out.

    I?m just saying that if Romney?s refusal to release starts to seriously hurt him and he bends to the pressure to release and it turns out there is badly damaging info in those returns, the GOP may very well need to nominate someone else.

    For that matter, if it turns out that Romney?s refusal to release hurts him badly, this, too, may be reason for the GOP to consider nominating someone else.

    I hope neither scenario happens and that this diversionary issue just goes away.

  • http://www.mtgriffith.com independentmike

    Regarding Boehner, I know he means well, but he’s not very good at defending the conservative message. I remember a few months ago hearing him interviewed and being asked about how we can cut taxes without increasing the deficit.

    He just kept using the argument that tax hikes would not help the economy. True enough in nearly all cases, but he mistakenly bought the assumption that tax cuts automatically lead to larger deficits, when in fact federal revenue has gone *up* after every major tax cut since the early 1900s.

    http://thedailyhatch.org/2011/05/11/gene-lyons-tax-cuts-always-reduce-tax-revenues-part-3/

  • acat

    Romney should have that long to wait before releasing any more tax returns than legally required.

    Mew

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    I don’t think you can always assume that tax cuts will lead to growth.

    It depends on what type of taxes, it depends on what are the rates, it depends on current economic conditions. It also depends on the permanence of the tax cuts. Temporary cuts do nothing.

    But it is safe to say that we are probably at the point where cuts to the corporate rates would help a lot. But only if they are permanent.

  • acat

    “hopes” to win re-election by continuing to bring up distractions like this. He can’t run on his record.

    Your buying into it is exactly the problem. Question more.

    Mew

  • Common_Cents

    For anyone that needs this type of clear indication that Obama does not have America’s interest in mind, this is it.

    this can easily translate into those that have jobs and have built their home and family. Obama would tell them the government did it.

  • John_C

    Thanks for posting this video. The Father speaking makes me proud to have once been a Catholic.

  • throwback59

    he would have said “you didn’t build THOSE.” Plural, not “you didn’t build THAT.” Obviously he was not referring to roads and bridges.
    Case closed.

  • jaykali

    I remember in my networking classes learning ab the early pinnings of the Internet and sure govt can take some credit but look the Internet as it exists today is way different than the beginnings which were just computer talking to each other over a long distance. It went though several evolutions until we finally had the world wide web in the 90s. Tim Berners Lee invented HTML and the HTTP protocol I believe from a private company so that is most recognized as the thing that really lit the world on fire. We had computers talking to each other for at least a decade or 2 but the entire wiring of the world was an evolution. It wasn’t just some govt project. My point is that Obama is taking way too much credit for the Internet. The early militay-funded network and what we have today are totally different. I would argue that private industry had a lot more to do with the creation of the world wide web as we know is today.

  • jaykali

    The web isn’t just some project the govt came up with. ISPs absolutely are part of the giant network. Govt I don’t believe pays for fiber optic lines. Most of the world servers I would think are privately owned. The web is a massive complex thing with a million components. And so I absolutely agree that govt research was part the early evolution of the web but it is so much more complex than that.

    And I don’t know that I’ve ever heard that “hackers” gave us the web we have today unless you are using that term in a very broad sense. Are you looking at a Wikipedia page some place? Where are you getting this information?

  • acat

    that would route around “damage” (such as “Chicago just got nuked”…) and allow command and control to continue as long as possible.

    While there are parts of the original DARPA backbone still in use, IIRC, most of the current internet is entirely civilian refinement and extension to… just as many interstates are expansions of the original Eisenhower system constructed .. also by the DoD.

    Mew

  • acat

    just by looking at the number of possible IP addresses.

    255 x 255 x 255 x 255 = 4,228,250,625 possible devices – a few more than your 1,000,000 … but even that wasn’t enough, so now we have both NAT and IPv6 vastly increasing the potential scale…

    As for “hacker”, the classical definition is “one who is creative” or “one who creates new things” – from the MIT model railroad club. The classical definition of “malicious hacker” was “cracker”, but for better or worse, Hollywood liked “hacker” more.

    Mew

  • checkmate2012

    misinformed. After DOD came up with the basic concept, telecom companies built it, own it and maintain it to this day. The gov’t leases circuits/networks from the private telecom companies. The feds/states don’t own anything. Look up Networx.

  • acat

    Electronic Document Interchange, that is.

    For the non-geeks, EDI was and is a very early (certainly pre-web) method of trading purchase orders, invoices, shipment information, etc. .. the common stuff that used to take whole floors of accounting clerks with typewriters to track … if GM wants to invoice a supplier, and the supplier is big enough, they send the invoice via EDI .. and the supplier replies via EDI.

    That’s where the telcos initially got involved, IIRC – wiring up early data centers to communicate with one another… with bigger companies – including WalMart – pushing their smaller suppliers to use EDI … or go find someplace else to sell to!

    Nothing DARPA there .. pure private sector… and quite a lucrative career for someone who likes that sort of thing.

    Mew

  • checkmate2012

    know about EDI, and I started in telecom literally 30 days after divesture at SBS in 1984, IBM owned, that was eventually bought out by MCI.

    So never heard of EDI. When was that?

  • acat

    but it’s a narrow specialty .. IIRC, Sterling Commerce is one of the big players in that pond. It’s a “standard” like COBOL, so it’s going to be around forever. I’m sure, if you work for a company of any size, that they have an EDI department somewhere….

    Mew

  • checkmate2012

    to enhance my knowledge. Thanks again ‘cat.

  • davenj1

    I can safely say that government did NOT help me. In fact, they were a huge hindrance. It was “here a tax, there a tax, everywhere a tax.” Even in years I showed a net loss, there was a $400 surcharge tax in New Jersey under Governors like Florio and Corzine and McGreevey. And I can safely say that it was NOT government helping me during those 18 hour days at this business.

  • acat

    in a small music venue, I was quite displeased that the state liquor bureau managed to find a way to demand (and get!) their licensing fee *twice*!

    The license was applied for, we were told we’d have it by a given date, so we set our opening day for the following Saturday. Then .. we were told “no, it’ll be a week later”.

    “But we’ve announced our opening! We have acts booked!”
    “Well .. we can give you a temporary license to cover that …”
    *sigh* “How much?”
    “{dollar amount equal to the cost of the yearly license}”

    Mew

  • teaforme2012

    The money grabs from state fees and surcharges are the most galling.

  • jaykali

    I need to go research this some more. I have a computer science degree and I certainly remember ‘Beowulf clusters’ and that kind of stuff which was part of the evolution, none of my networking classes said that this was all govt driven.

    I don’t know if govt research is what figured out how to send a ‘packet’ of information from one place to another, if so that was certainly a big achievement. I know that the www as we know it today didn’t exist until you had the HTTP protocol which didn’t go maintstream until the mid 90s. In the early 90s I was on prodigy.net and compuserve while others were doing AOL which was ‘kinda/sorta’ like the internet but not really. Once you had HTTP and you could type in an address, that was the official www Internet in my mind.

    To say that govt invented the internet, which was Obama’s original premise, is to me so completely dumb bc so much was done by private industry.

  • jaykali

    After some light googling, I am seeing ARPANET which I remember now (Networking 101) and so I guess that is what the govt came up with that makes them take credit for the Internet. I still don’t buy it, so ARPANET was a way for computers to talk to each other, and we had that for decades but we didn’t have the internet. We had Matthew Broderick dialing into govt computers in movies in the 80s but that wasn’t the Internet. It went through several iterations until we had HTTP & computers with an easy enough visual interface to make it really explode.

    I think I am going to need to buy a ‘history of the internet’ book to get up to speed since I make my living off of it.

  • libertariansoc

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN#Computer_science

    A gov’t funded research facility in Europe.

    Yes, the early military network and the current internet are very different but all the networks developed in-between were developed by gov’t and university too.

    There’s very little, if any, private (non-gov’t funded) industry anywhere in the creation of the internet story.

  • acat

    I was on the internet prior to Compuserve … via a BBS relay. Do any of you kids remember BBSes? Bulletin Board Servers? Instead of dialing up AOL, you’d dial up a BBS, and you could read and write messages and (later) play games .. but *only* on that BBS…

    My point in bringing up EDI is .. it’s a very early example of the “corporate internet”, or “internet for business purposes”. There’s quite a lot that can be done without hypertext transport protocol (HTTP), y’know …

    The original network protocols, though, were developed by academics funded by DARPA, so … there’s a grain of truth in the statement, but it’s just as valid to say “The government invented the interstate highway”.

    Mew

  • acat

    You only need to know the history if you want to know what the dinosaurs like me are talking about.

    Mew

  • libertariansoc

    Yes, DoD came up with the basic concept then Universities and other gov’t funded entities did the rest.

    Telcos laying broadband cable is not telcos creating the internet.

    Saying Telcos created the internet is like saying Telcos created movies and television shows. They provide access to them, that’s all.

    And even in the case of broadband in the US, Telcos said they wouldn’t lay cable without gov’t letting them have local monopolies.

  • libertariansoc

    EDI was developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. It’s also not what you’re saying it is. It’s a document interchange format not a network by itself.
    http://www.itl.nist.gov/fipspubs/fip161-2.htm
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_data_interchange

    Jaykali- TCP/IP was definitely gov’t driven.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCP/IP#History

    Yes, I studied computer science too. They don’t bring up the gov’t financing because it’s not supposed to be political.

  • jaykali

    I certainly know that a lot of computer science has it’s origins in academia, and so that usually means public universities which means Obama can pretty much take credit for all research everywhere.

    My original point was that the Internet as we know it today really began when you had HTTP.

  • tnfriendofcoal101368

    Into the invention, mass production, and marketing of personal computers (thank you Jobs and Woz; well and Bill Gates to), then the popularity of AOL forcing bigger, better networks to keep up with the demand. Credit card companies figuring out they could drive sales with instant decisions instead of “fill out a form; come back next month to buy that new counter top Mrs. Cat has her eyes on”. My point is once the foundations were in place, there were dollars to be made and entrepreneurs chased those dollars forcing better networks for more dollars. Good old fashioned capitalism invented the internet we know today; no matter what Bill Ayers told young Barry Soetero.

  • Common_Cents

    some_text

  • acat

    Why is that?

    The Internet may, 30 years ago, have meant TCP/IP and ARPA-NET .. but that’s like defining “interstate highways” as *just* the 1940s-era Eisenhower system components. It’s *silly*.

    Yes, the DoD developed the TCP/IP protocol… but they did not develop HTTP. That was all private sector… and it’s HTTP that’s made the internet accessible to Joe Citizen.

    Yes, the DoD funded ARPA-NET .. but the Telcos and cable companies and wireless outfits funded the “private” extensions to ARPA that made it useful to individual citizens.

    I can’t say that I’m surprised here. Libertarians are kinda notorious for re-defining terms to mean what they want rather than using commonly accepted definitions…..

    Mew

  • acat

    I never said EDI was “a network”. Further, you clearly didn’t read your own Wikipedia cite – NIST didn’t get into EDI standards until 1996 .. prior to that, the standards were developed by a consortium of business and technology experts.

    EDI dates back to the 1980s, significantly before the first hints of HTTP in the early ’90s.

    You may want to quit digging now.

    Mew

  • tnfriendofcoal101368

    was mainly how do we build a less vulnerable communications network. The internet was we came to know was http and telcos laying broadband and pc’s going to market and smartphones and data access lines and bankers being convinced infrastructure loans to telcos was a good bet and basically entrepreneurs seeing there was money to be made.

    Edison and Westinghouse figured out how to push electricity over power lines to make money; Ford and Olds figured out mass production to make money;Jobs and Woz built computers to make money;Bill Gates “borrowed” DOS from IBM and GUI from Xerox to make money. Lasting change is almost always rooted in the profit incentive not the government which is why people being able to pursue their own interest and dreams with their own capital (or that provided by banks) is a better investment than government no matter what Bill Ayers told a young Barry Soetero (I know acat I am preaching to the choir).

  • libertariansoc

    CERN is a (European) gov’t funded research facility.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext_Transfer_Protocol

    “Berners-Lee and his team are credited with inventing the original HTTP along with HTML and the associated technology for a web server and a text-based web browser.”

    I’m not changing definitions, it’s just that you seem to not know what the internet is and isn’t. The web (http, html etc.) is not the internet. The web is essentially the “killer app” for the internet and it is the most popular thing on the internet but they are two separate things. For instance, email was in widespread use before the web and it’s on the internet too.

    There are other things are on the internet that are not the web: Voice-over-ip, IPTV, UDP, RDP, FTP, Gopher, Instant Messaging/IRC, Internet Radio etc.

    Either way, the web and the internet were invented and developed by governments and government funded research facilities.

    No, it was not private extensions to ARPA… the internet and the web (tcp/ip, html, http etc.) were developed by gov’ts.

  • lineholder

    I really hope Americans have been paying attention, caught on to the kinds of tactics that orgs like Moveon try to use…and give them a great, big, fat, wet, utterly satisfying raspberry as they laugh and pull the lever for Romney in November.

  • libertariansoc

    Dialup modems anyone?

    The internet (just like computer networking in general) can be done over virtually any of the existing infrustructure including powerlines, cellular, satellite, and even ham radio.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_line_communication
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_spaces_(radio)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_broadband

    The Space Station has internet access and a twitter account. And it’s not because some telco ran broadband lines up there.

  • acat

    like many Libertarians, you’re more interested in being right than you are in actually having a conversation.

    Many of the developers of Mosaic, which came out of U of I, went on to write Netscape Navigator (a.k.a. Mozilla, or Mosaic-Godzilla) …

    Government, especially DARPA and DoD, develop lots of ideas, very few become civilian successes. For every Tang or TCP/IP, there’s a dozen that go nowhere.

    By saying “Government invented the internet”, you may be technically true … ignoring for the moment the vast amounts of prior art like Xanadu and reams of science fiction … but it is not the whole story. Government invented it, but the private sector made it useful.

    Mew

  • acat

    RFC 1149.

    Are you now claiming “the internet” just means a collection of protocols? That’s a remarkably silly statement.

    Mew

  • wintermute

    That was absolutely hilarious.

  • http://redpillreport.net/ RedPillReport

    If you’re going to allow your jealousy and disdain for successful, accomplished, practitioners of capitalism to slip out, have the integrity to own those deep-rooted opinions. We already know ‘who’ you are by observing the people you choose for friends and associates, so your cowardly back peddling only makes it look like you are ashamed of your own ideas.

    Tell the American people who you are. If we are impressed, we will elect you to a second term. Just don’t pretend to be something you’re not.

  • tnfriendofcoal101368

    ways – AOL did over dialup modems; made a pile; took over Time-Warner and then got creamed in broadband. The fact is AOL and Compuserve don’t exist without the profit incentive and neither would the internet as you know it.

    Jobs sold his VW wagon and Woz sold his HP scientific calculator to get the money to build the first Apple computer in Jobs’ garage. That event had as much to do with the internet explosion as anything, you have mentioned as it started the mass production of personal computers. Then as people desired the communications and information and ease – AOL came along and then folks starting building better mousetraps. Free markets (and access to capital) not the government built the internet. The government wanted a better more secure walkie talkie; that might be the beginning of the internet but it aint the internet anymore than a seed is an oak tree.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    How is this important in any way?

    Government creates road, bridges, the internet, bombs, etc. and I pay my taxes.

    After paying my obligations I have no further obligation to them.

    they don’t get to run my life just because the DOD created Arpanet.

  • libertariansoc

    You guys wish the gov’t had nothing to do with the internet so you can claim the US gov’t is incapable of doing good things.

    If you admitted the gov’t was THE biggest player in the development of the internet it would shock your ideology to the core. That’s the problem.

    This whole thing wouldn’t be an issue if you guys were wiling to take a nuanced position.

    The gov’t funded and developed the internet far more than “private industry” did. That’s a fact. You can go look up the alphabet soup of internet technologies and see it for yourself. Even Mosaic/Netscape received it’s initial funding from the Al Gore bill.

    As far as telcos are concerned, people get the idea that Telcos added a lot of value to the internet but in reality they just provide access to it… and in many places, really self-reliant communities circumvent the telcos to get internet access:

    http://www.muninetworks.org/communitymap

    Click on any one of those networks to read the history behind it.

  • acat

    The problem is not us trying to score points.

    Mew

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Obama’s big government fantasies can remain on his sites, thanks.

  • avagreen

    I was around when Netscape went public. I even lived in the little burg in which it was created by a college student to help him do research, then his buds wanted to use, then the college professors, who then sent it to other profs in other colleges.

    It went public in 1994 and made his mother, who lived in the same town, a millionaire overnight. So, unless I’m sadly mistaken, Gore didn’t have thing to do with it. The town was Plainview, TX, and the college was Waylon Baptist. It was the first browser I used…….back in 1994.

    Netscape?s Initial Public Offering

    The case: This case talks about the rise of Netscape in the dot-com era and technology boom of the late 1990s and making the Internet and World Wide Web (WWW) common household terms and services. After being the market leader for some time, now it is facing competition from the likes of Microsoft, Spyglass etc. It needs to raise capital to invest in new projects in order to maintain its position, so it decided to go for public offering.

    The company: Netscape was founded in 1994, where it provided a comprehensive line of client, server, and integrated applications software for communications and commerce on the Internet and private Internet protocol (IP) networks. The company?s most popular product, Netscape Navigator and Server software were the leading programs. Using the ?give away today and make money tomorrow? Netscape succeeded in capturing 75% of the web browser market.

    The Issue: After the IPO was floated, it received tremendously favorable response from the investors and it got oversubscribed remarkably. The underwriters have proposed to management to increase the offering price from $14 to $28. The board had to consider the proposal considering the valuation of the company and the potential risks and rewards that might accompany such a move.

    Case Analysis: The Company?s current value is $16million and if it is priced at $28 then it is being valued at over $1billion. For a company which is just 16 months old and yet to see profits this was a huge task. So let us try to see at what rate the yearly revenue should grow in order to have a valuation of $1billion in 10 years. Let us try to use Net Present Value analysis for the time period 1995-2005 with…

    http://www.oppapers.com/essays/Netscape-Ipo/489372

  • APA Guy

    …particularly as some small businesses close their doors. They are very much appreciating the fact that he is giving government credit for business success…while at the same time trying to distance himself from the destruction he has caused to the business sector and the economy as a whole.

    Yeah…safe to say that Obama (and anyone who hitched their wagon to his policies…you hear me, Joe Donnelly?) won’t be winning this state. In fact, you could say that Dems are becoming an endangered species here in the Hoosier State with each passing day.

  • Common_Cents

  • jakeofalltrades

    among many other hats. Outrageous hourly rates are charged by old geezers to write EDI software. But modern programming techniques make EDI trivial – and no one who pays these people seems to have caught on to this.

  • Christine

    American National Standards Institute.

    I don’t know if NIST ever had a hand in it, but right now it’s ANSI X12 who “owns” it, which is why it’s often called X12 standard.

  • Christine

    17 years. Was a regular attendee at X12 for a number of years.

    EDI programming is only trivial these days if you understand it. If you don’t, it can get really ugly.

  • aesthete

    in the development of the internet. That is not to put down the folks who were involved in that project, but it’s a near-certainty that the internet would have been developed privately — probably within 5-15 years of when it happened with government involvement. As others have said, the internet was essentially nothing without the private developers who successfully (often against the wishes and direction of government) commercialized that space.

  • aesthete

    is like saying that the steam engine was developed by Hero of Alexandria — true in some sense, but also a statement which obscures the development which most people associate with the internet, and not quite the unique accomplishment which is implied by that statement outside of historical context.

  • synergist777

    I remember when I starting writing Internet programs around ’89 or so (I was a moderator on 3 BBS networks, so I remember the time, too). I was asked to look into SGML (it stemmed out of IBM, but I recall the best support at the time came from Denmark). A couple of years later, in 1994, I was working in one of the first advertising supported online services. Since I was the only person there who even knew what SGML stood for, I was naturally put in charge of SGML programming. So I remember VERY clearly when the government got out of the way, and the Internet exploded (and I got my first web projects). And, as you rightly point out, the Government may have funded its invention, but it was only when the government freed it up that it really became useful.

  • aesthete

    It is no more logical than me telling someone else that they need to pay taxes to support Christianity, since the Christian church was so integral to the success and development of Western thought, or that slaves need to “earn” all that slaveowners invested in them. It’s an ugly way of looking at the world that would not stand up to scrutiny, even of the colloquial sort: indeed, how does one caricature the logic of a wife beater who bellows at her drunkenly that she doesn’t appreciate the money he brings into the family? Or that of the date rapist who insists that his spurned advances are payment enough for the satisfaction that he takes by force? A “gift” which demands recompense is no gift at all, especially when the “giver” gets to set his own price and force the recipient to pay the price.

    It’s a roundabout way of arguing that you and I don’t own ourselves; that the majority stockholder in our lives is “society” at large, and that government is the acting regent of society’s affairs until society comes of age (which would be never; see communism and the “shedding of the dictatorship of the proletariat” for details). In reality, government is the lecherous, drunken, worthless bastard child of society and force; an ungrateful, delusional sot that thinks itself great because it manages through guile or threats to get the other family members to chip into its destructive enterprises. It is no more responsible for the good that comes out of society and voluntary cooperation than your average brigand.

  • tnfriendofcoal101368

    Than the libertarian at the beginning. No libertarians I have met are that found of the government but every socialist is. Oh well, he can add “Banned by RedState” to his signature at DKos. I suspect his parents would be prouder if he found a job. These DKos kids have come out of the woodwork like cockroaches since Barry’s teleprompter broke in Roanoke.

  • aesthete

    how are you a libertarian, when you are so hostile to the well-documented story of the internet’s development by the private sector and to anyone who thinks that this private development was a good thing? Any book on Amazon regarding the development of the internet, no matter how ideological, is going to discuss the many and varied private sector precursors and in most cases will mention concurrent efforts.

    There are a number of things that government can take exclusive credit for in American society — most of them bad, but some of them decent, e.g., manned space flight until recently. The internet simply isn’t one of those things.

  • tnfriendofcoal101368

    As I said below, I think the soc part is more his philosophy.

  • From ME to You

    Now that we are on the edge of commercial spaceflight becoming a reality we will see a growth beyond anything that a government program could achieve.

    Design by committee doesn’t work. Robert Heinlein’s fictional character Lazarus Long had a line ” An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.”

    I say an elephant is a mouse designed by a committee and a victim of “mission creep”.

  • aesthete

    type.

  • aesthete

    who works for Raytheon, and he was recently at a conference in CA with Raytheon, IBM and SpaceX. Talked about the SpaceX setup; they’re expanding, got lots of employees and lots of motivation, and they’re very optimistic about taking over several of the functions that NASA has been failing at recently. It’s just the tip of the iceberg, and I’m very excited to see how commercialized space flight progresses as time goes on.

  • aesthete

    aero engineer.

    My bad.

  • jaykali

    That was essentially my point but you worded it a lot better.

  • jaykali

    I don’t even know what his point is other than to defend that the govt invented the Internet?

  • jaykali

    I think we lost the plot in this thread. My original point was attacking Obama for taking credit for the internet (similar to Al Gore actually) as if it was some great idea some beaureaucrat thought of that now lets us have iPhones. That lead to discussion of how much the govt should get credit. I would say little in the grand scheme of things, especially when Obama is making the point to justify more wreckless spending.

  • jaykali

    The web grew into this massive thing, but it wasn’t like it was planned out to end up that way. It grew, it evolved. It has had millions of people participating. That’s why it’s frustrating to hear a politician take credit for it. To this day programmers like myself reference Al Gores comments all the time…

  • From ME to You

    having spent 20 years in the AF I kept seeing many Gov’t employees in management positions who were their to maintain the status quo. There was no incentive to innovate to achieve better services or efficiencies.

    If their area got too efficient they would cut their budget which would mean fewer employees to manage.

    Since the salary band of the management position is determined by how many employees work for you the incentive is to ‘grow’ your staff without regard to the end product. You just needed to have more employees to justify a higher salary.

    Conversely, in the private sector, efficiency/productivity is rewarded!

  • APA Guy

    First his people were digging in and defending what he said, now they are whining that he was “taken out of context”.

    SUURRRRRRRRE…

    Obama, thy big mouth is thy undoing. So let it be written…so let it be done.