A Game of Telephone

[libertango]

Some may remember how I like to track things down when they get distorted on the internet. For example, the "privilege meme", which was widely attributed to researchers at Illinois State, when in fact they're at Indiana State. Or Mary Schmich's adivice to "Wear Sunscreen", which got attributed to Kurt Vonnegut.

The most recent example of this is the idea that Obama recently said, "Call me if you need me." This has caused a range of reactions in the right-wing blogosphere, from snickers, to indignation, to outrage.

One little problem: He never said that phrase.

Here's the clip of what he said, from YouTube.

Here's the transcript:

OBAMA: You know, what I'm going to do is, I'm going to -- what I have told the leadership in Congress is that, if I can be helpful, then I am prepared to be anywhere any time.

What I think is important, though, is that we don't suddenly infuse Capitol Hill with presidential politics at a time when we're in the middle of some very delicate and difficult negotiations.

So, you know, I think the message is, if you need us, if I can be helpful, I'm prepared to be there at any point.

But, keep in mind, again, I'm talking to Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, the congressional leadership, Hank Paulson, I'm talking to them every single day. We have been working around the clock. And, you know, presidents are going to have to deal with more than one thing at a time. It's not necessary for us to think that we can only do one thing and suspend everything else.

The condensation of that to "Call me if you need me," appears to have started with this blog post -- except even then, the exact phrase occurs only in the title. The body text says, "...Obama said that if they [Congress] need me, they’ll call me."

But the true irony lost on the echo chamber is this:

If you don’t need to call on him, why should you? That thought is directly in the spirit of Ronald Reagan and conservative, limited government. Remember the sign on his Oval Office desk? “There is no limit to what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.”

For someone who’s been accused of thinking he’s a messiah, it strikes me as a very humble statement.

Comments

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

Well done, sir!


Similar to the distortion about Al Gore claiming to invent the Internet.