Obama gets grief for private sector remark

BY KEN THOMAS

AND PHILIP ELLIOTT

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama made Mitt Romney's day by declaring "the private sector is doing fine" and opening himself to the accusation that he -- not the rich Republican -- is the one who's out of touch with reality.

Obama quickly clarified his remark Friday, but Republicans already had their teeth locked in it.

"Is he really that out of touch?" GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney asked as Obama's initial comments ricocheted through the presidential campaign.

Seeking to head off any damage, Obama backpedaled and declared it is "absolutely clear that the economy is not doing fine." While there had been some "good momentum" in the private sector, Obama said, public sector growth lagged behind, making it imperative that Congress act on his proposals to hire more teachers and first-responders.

Obama's original six-word sentence, even if taken out of context, amounted to an unforced political error. The economy is the single biggest issue on voters' minds and a weak spot for him, given the nation's stubbornly high 8.2 percent unemployment rate.

Nearly every day, Obama finds himself having to defend his stewardship of an economy that has struggled to recover from the 2008 economic downturn and pleading with voters to stick with him because, he says, Romney would pursue policies that led to the recession.

But Friday, Obama may have given his rival an opening. The former Massachusetts governor argued anew that Obama does not understand how to jump-start the economy and that his agenda has thwarted the recovery instead of putting millions of unemployed workers back on the job.

Obama's comments at a White House news conference were reminiscent of Republican nominee John McCain's assertion in mid-September 2008 that the "fundamentals of our economy are strong," just as the U.S. economy was melting down. Candidate Obama seized on those comments then. Now, as president, he was getting grief along similar lines.

Romney, holding a campaign event in Council Bluffs, Iowa, said Obama's remark was "defining what it means to be detached and out of touch with the American people." He said the comment "is going to go down in history as an extraordinary miscalculation and misunderstanding."

Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said Obama had taken office "in the midst of a severe economic crisis and fought back against that to the point where businesses have now created more than 4.3 million private sector jobs."

He later said on Twitter, "Being called out of touch by a candidate who joked about being unemployed and said he likes to fire people is rich."