This is just more gotcha tricks/traps that everyone in politics pulls. Record *everything* said and then make a big deal out of any and every little mistake.
Yeah, but it is part of the job of being a politician. If you can't handle public speaking, it might not be the job for you. At least, not being "The Guy"- you might still be a killer staffer.
And by that I don't mean that politicians need to be flawless presenters of their ideas. They're humans. They make mistakes. It is how they handle their mistakes that matters.
If you roll out some concept and fumble it, you sure as he'll better not goof up your attempts to clarify.
Ditto the issue of simply being incorrect. I don't have a problem a politician who changes his mind, as long as he's doing so for the right reasons: got better data, saw moral/economic implications that hadn't occurred to him before, etc.
Changing your position based on polls? You're a flip-flopper. Doing it because your campaign or your favored institutions got a big influx of cash? You're a mercenary. That's not how you win MY vote.
Just like Obama didn't mean that a business owner didn't build his own business with the "you didn't build that" comment.
Yeah. But the problem there wasn't so much a "gotcha" as that it was completely excised from context. Listen to the whole of that part of the speech, and it is perfectly clear what Obama was referring to.
In Bush's case, his clarification- while perfectly acceptable- was done some time after.
The former was manufactured controversy- such as you rightfully pointed out could be happening with Jeb- while Jeb simply expressed himself poorly and didn't correct himself for some time.
