Rush Limbaugh complained that Mitt Romney's “47 percent” comments were taken out of context, at the same time advising Romney to highlight President Obama's deceptively edited comments on small businesses. But even Romney doesn't argue his comments were misrepresented, instead saying they were “not elegantly stated” while Obama's words have been constantly twisted to distort their meaning.  

During his radio show, Rush Limbaugh suggested Romney is avoiding a discussion on welfare reform during the debates because of his comments that 47 percent of voters believe they are victims and won't take “personal responsibility” for their lives. Limbaugh suggested that those remarks were being taken out of context, but went on to advise Romney to attack Obama using the distorted “you didn't build that” video:

But Romney's comments were not taken out of context, a fact he admits himself. Obama's comments, on the other hand, were taken out of context and distorted in a way that turned praise for infrastructure, teachers, and public improvements into an attack on small businesses. 

Despite Limbaugh repeatedly trying to run cover for his 47 percent comments, Romney threw his right-wing media cheerleaders under the bus when he stated that his comments about 47 percent of Americans were “completely wrong.”  The full, unedited video of Romney's comments to donors clearly shows him attacking supporters of President Obama as “dependent on government” and unwilling to “take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

Obama's comments from July have been repeatedly taken out of context. Limbaugh continued distorting Obama's comments today when he advised Romney to jump on Obama for “telling successful people of the world that they didn't do that.”

Of course, President Obama's comments take on an entirely different meaning in their full context. During his July 13 Roanoke speech, Obama simply pointed out that the success of small businesses can also be attributed to outside influences such as “a great teacher somewhere in your life” and investment “in roads and bridges”:

OBAMA: [L]ook, if you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own.  You didn't get there on your own.  I'm always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart.  There are a lot of smart people out there.  It must be because I worked harder than everybody else.  Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

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.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.  There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don't do on our own.  I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service.  That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together.  That's how we funded the GI Bill.  That's how we created the middle class.  That's how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam.  That's how we invented the Internet.  That's how we sent a man to the moon.  We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that's the reason I'm running for President -- because I still believe in that idea.  You're not on your own, we're in this together.