According to a new Gallup survey, business owners maintain the highest level of disapproval toward Obama of the eleven measured major occupational groups in America.

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 “You didn’t build that!  Somebody else made that happen!” 

 It’s the summer blunder that refuses to go away. 

And justifiably so.  It betrays the ugly business antipathy of a man whose viability demands artifice, whose reelection demands continuation of his 2008 opacity. 

Consider:  Barack Obama was elected in 2008 by sheer fortune of timing, combined with an astonishing failure to vet him personally and professionally.  Given his inexperience, his intimate associations with convicted criminals and anti-Semitic mentors, his fabricated biography, his hard drug abuse, his objections to our Founding Fathers as insufficiently redistributionist, his “spread the wealth around” and “cling to their guns and religion” comments and other disqualifying flaws, posterity should one day marvel that this man even contended for his party’s nomination. 

Imagine if that were Romney’s biography, and it was Team Obama’s task to expose it.  As it is, Obama maligns the squeaky-clean Romney as a potential felon. 

Nonetheless, Obama and his enablers continue their habit of deflecting scrutiny, as illustrated by their desperate effort to dismiss this latest unintentional confession.  They ask voters to believe that simply quoting Obama’s actual words somehow amounts to taking him “out of context.” 

Which is why his “You didn’t build that!” comment will remain important.  It unmasks him. 

And who would know better than business owners themselves? 

According to a new Gallup survey, business owners maintain the highest level of disapproval toward Obama of the eleven measured major occupational groups in America.  Overall, 59% of business owners disapprove of Obama’s performance, while only 35% approve.  For the record, the occupational group “farming, fishing or forestry worker” maintains the second-highest rate of disapproval at 57%, with only 34% approving, followed by “construction or mining worker” with a 53% to 37% disapproval margin. 

Moreover, business owners’ approval showed the most dramatic decline between the first and second quarters of 2012.  Most of the eleven occupational groups surveyed maintained their approval/disapproval margins between quarters one and two, but business owners’ esteem fell six more points. 

That is ominous news for Obama, as Gallup notes: 

“[T]hey are of course a critical component of the economy and overall economic optimism in the country. If business owners become more positive about Obama and his plans for the economy, that could potentially boost his approval ratings and broader U.S. economic confidence closer to the levels necessary for him to be well positioned for re-election. Conversely, further deterioration in his approval rating among business owners could certainly add to the perception that Obama is not doing enough to bolster small businesses in the country.”

Thus, those most familiar with Obama’s business outlook approve of him least. 

Beyond that dynamic, Obama’s gaffe maintains resonance because his attempts to dismiss it are preposterous.  Here is his statement, unedited: 

“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 White House claims the "that" refers to roads and bridges, but why would such a supposedly gifted orator employ the singular “that” to refer to the plural roads, bridges and teachers?  And not just once – he used “that” twice in those final two sentences.  Second, consider the preceding sentences in which he sarcastically taunts successful businesspeople with, “I was just so smart” and, “It must be because I worked harder than everybody else.”  The words themselves are disparaging, and watching Obama say them on video only exacerbates his antagonistic demeanor.  Third, even assuming for a moment that Obama was inartfully referring to roads, bridges and teachers, what nation on Earth doesn’t have great teachers, roads and bridges? 

In fact, given how often liberals allege that our “crumbling infrastructure” justifies even more “stimulus” government spending, and the state of education here, wouldn’t all of those other countries with better autobahns, bridges and teachers exceed America in innovation, prosperity and power? 

Obviously, Obama’s alibis make zero sense linguistically or logically. 

Consequently, the blunder won’t be going away anytime soon.  It exposes to the broader electorate what business owners already know.