We've seen Mitt Romney "pounce" on something President Obama said:
We know that Mr. Romney was doing something like this:
But let's turn to what President Obama actually said. (excellent diary by electablog)
More below the fold.
Now here is the actual quote:
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.
The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.
Here is but a small example from my life.
I love to run and walk long distances. In fact, I've finished four 100 mile races (walking 100 percent of the time) and my times have varied from 23:41 (twenty three hours, forty one minutes) to 47:55 (yep, almost 2 full days).
Why? Well, paths make all of the difference in the world.
True: in each case, I covered ALL of the distance on my own, tired, blistered feet. In each case, I did the training; no one did it for me. But:
in my fastest case, I had a bouncy rubberized track to walk on; I also had aid stations and because I was trying for time, I had an assistant (my wife) feed me every 4 hours. That saved time.
In the slowest case, I was walking on a very slick, very muddy trail course. The course; that is, the path I had to take made all of the difference in the world!
But even then, i had frequent aid stations (roughly every 3-4 miles). I couldn't have done it without them.
Then there was the time when I went for a hike and got lost; I missed a trail blaze and followed survey markers. I was amazed at how much harder it was to move when I was off of the path that someone else had carved out for the rest of us.
Of course, the President's remarks apply to much more important matters. I have a job, made possible by my Ph. D., which I worked very hard for. But I went to a state school, got federal grants (e. g., NSF), teaching assistantships and used veteran's benefits. I did all of the research and studying, but the path was, in some sense, laid out for me to take.
I walked the path with my own effort, but others made sure it was there to be walked on.