Obama campaign hammers Romney for opposing jobs plan for firefighters, police officers, and teachers

If the Mitt Romney campaign had its way, the political world would be spending today talking about an out of context snippet from President Obama's Friday morning press conference on jobs. Unfortunately for them, Mitt Romney didn't cooperate because instead of limiting his response to Obama's choice of words, Romney came out against a key part of the president's jobs plan, delivering aid to state and local governments to put laid off firemen, policemen, and teachers back to work. In fact, he didn't just come out against it'he actually called for firing even more of them.

He says we need more fireman, more policeman, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It's time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.

As you can see in the video at the top of the page, the Obama campaign is hammering Romney for this comment. And unlike Romney's attempt to twist President Obama's words, this attack on Romney doesn't take anything out of context. In fact, it's a position that Romney has expressed prefer, albeit in slightly more artful language.

There will no doubt be plenty of false equivalencies made between the Romney campaign's attack on Obama and the Obama campaign's attack on Romney, but they are ultimately very different kinds of attacks. Romney's attack depends on distorting the meaning of Obama's words. Obama's attack depends on making sure voters hear what Mitt Romey actually said'and meant.