Cameron: Romney Used Obama's “Own Words” Calling Unemployment A “Bump In The Road”

Cameron: Romney Ad Is “Using The President's Own Words Against Him.” Fox News reporter Carl Cameron said that Republican primary candidate Mitt Romney “has put out a web video trying to focus on the economy, and using the president's own words against him to suggest that Obama is out of touch.” Fox then aired part of Romney's ad suggesting that Obama called the June unemployment report a “bump in the road.” [Fox News, America's Newsroom, 6/13/11]

Obama Was Actually Referring To Economic “Disruptions” - Including High Gas Prices And Overseas Turmoil - Not Unemployment

Obama Did Not Call The Unemployment Rate A “Bump In The Road.” From President Obama's June 3 speech to autoworkers in Toledo, Ohio:

Now, I don't want to pretend like everything is solved. We've still got a long way to go not just in this industry, but in our economy; for all our friends, all our neighbors who are still feeling the sting of recession. There's nobody here who doesn't know someone who is looking for work and hasn't found something yet. Even though the economy is growing, even though it's created more than 2 million jobs over the past 15 months, we still face some tough times. We still face some challenges. This economy took a big hit. You know, it's just like if you had a bad illness, if you got hit by a truck, it's going to take a while for you to mend. And that's what's happened to our economy. It's taking a while to mend.

And there are still some headwinds that are coming at us. Lately, it's been high gas prices that have caused a lot of hardship for a lot of working families. And then you had the economic disruptions following the tragedy in Japan. You got the instability in the Middle East, which makes folks uncertain. There are always going to be bumps on the road to recovery. We're going to pass through some rough terrain that even a Wrangler would have a hard time with. We know that. [WhiteHouse.gov, 6/3/11, emphasis added]