Tonight Obama yet again quoted McCain saying that “great progress” has been made economically under Bush without acknowledging the full context of McCain’s statement. Here’s what First Read wrote when he previously attributed the quote to McCain over the weekend:
“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.”
UPDATE: Geraghty noticed this as well.