Obama attack ad goes after Romney for quoting Obama

Obama Ad Accuses Romney of 'Launching a False Attack' for Quoting Obama

1:46 PM, Jul 19, 2012 • By DANIEL HALPER

President Obama's reelection campaign accuses Mitt Romney of distorting the president's words, by showing a side by side comparison of the Obama's words and Romney's quotation of those words:

"Mitt Romney is launching a false attack," the ad's text states. But the weird thing is: The Obama campaign is purposefully trying to make it sound like Romney is misquoting the president, when the official White House transcript backs up Romney's quotation.

In the ad, Romney says that Obama revealed his thoughts on business when he said this, "If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen."

And, in fact, according to official White House transcript that's precisely what Obama said on July 13, 2012 in Roanoke, Virginia.

Nevertheless, the Obama campaign, in the ad, says it's not true. "The only problem?," the ad text reads. "That's not what he said." It then turns to Obama, from the same Roanoke campaign speech, who said, "If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life."

Which is true. Obama did say that. But he also said the line that Romney says he said-- "If you’ve got a business --you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen."

And, in fact, later in the ad the Obama campaign actually plays the clip that Romney quotes of Obama, at about :40 second spot.

"Mitt Romney will say anything," the ad concludes. It turns out, he'll even say Obama's words when quoting him.