Here is the complete excerpt:
"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."And also the final summary, emphasis mine:
"The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together."Now if you put both of those phrases together, they do make an abundant amount of sense, don't they? Any President who is mindful that (a) people have a great opportunity to be successful and (b) are willing to put forth their dreams can do it. You could of course do everything on your own, from the sweat of your brow, and turn out to be wildly successful, but it's an uphill battle. If you get more people involved, it makes the job a lot easier.
"You didn't build that" to me, doesn't mean "The government built it, it gets all of the credit, so don't try anything funny." It's more astonishment and amazement that without even the grain of help the government could give (better yet, the rules and regulations it could impose), the government is saying, "C'mon, are you serious? You got absolutely zero help from us or anyone else, and it's successful?" Then once the person proves their success, the government can say, "Well done."
Again, reading the whole speech and not cherry-picking certain phrases the left and right like, you get the full picture.
UPDATE 9/2/2012: Kyle Smith of the New York Post has more.
