Mitt Romney’s twisting of President Obama’s rhetoric continues today with a press release insisting that, yes, Obama really did say people who own businesses didn’t build them. "President Obama Meant It," the release says, "He’s Consistently Sided With Government As The Answer To Solving Our Nation’s Problems." Afterwards the press release cites a new pair of Obama statements, one from 2009 and one from 2012, that supposedly back up Romney’s claim.

As you probably know by now, Romney has been taking the infamous Obama quote ("If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that") out of context. Obama wasn’t denying the effort individual entrepreneurs make or whether, if successful, they deserve credit for it. Rather, he was saying that behind every business success story you can usually find some level of help from the government, whether in the form of infrastructure, public services, or even direct financial assistance. And the stories of small business owners Romney has been highlighting in the last few days actually back up Obama’s essential claim. As noted yesterday, the Massachusetts businessman who appeared at a Romney event last week and the New Hampshire one stars in a new Romney ad both received loans from programs financed or run directly by the federal government.

The Obama quotes that Romney cites today are similarly revealing. Here’s the first one, taken from a 2012 speech:

Yes, there have been fierce arguments throughout our history between both parties about the exact size and role of government — some honest disagreements. But in the decades after World War II, there was a general consensus that the market couldn’t solve all of our problems on its own.

And here’s the second, from 2009 while Obama was promoting the Recovery Act:

Only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy, where a lack of spending leads to lost jobs which leads to even less spending.

Do either of these sound like Obama thinks business owners don’t work hard for their success? Or that the market never works? Hardly. Look at that key phrase in the first quote: "market couldn’t solve all of our problems on its own." That clearly implies the market can solve some problems on its own—and that, when it can’t, it simply needs help. As for the second quote, it’s an illustration of the first statement: A suggestion that, when the economy slows down, the market can’t fix itself without some kind of outside intervention.