Obama: Totally Out of Touch

It was just six words from a 29-minute news conference, but President Barack Obama's assertion that "the private sector is doing fine" looked primed to play a starring role in an already fevered campaign season.

President Barack Obama discussed the euro-zone crisis and the overall state of the U.S. economy on Friday morning, June 8, 2012. In a discussion that focused in large part on Europe's problems, Mr. Obama turned at one point to the U.S. He said Republicans needed to join him to help state and local governments that had continued to shed jobs while private-sector employment expanded.

"The truth of the matter is that, as I said, we've created 4.3 million jobs over the last 27 months," Obama said — but the six words that preceded it were all the Romney campaign needed. Within hours, the line was an attack ad.

Whether the slip was a fair description of Obama's economic record or a manufactured gaffe was beside the point. In a campaign season, six careless words can do more work than twenty-seven careful minutes.