From the small-business people and the politicians who venerate them, we hear a lot of very sensible talk about what it takes, and what it should take, to succeed in America. The argument that this is what America is all about has coherence and force. And then, as if to close the deal, they misquote Mr. Obama’s “you didn’t build that” as referring to those small businesses—when he was actually talking about the roads and bridges we all use for free to do our business. When your case can stand on its own two feet so well, why undercut it with a lie?

—Richard Smith, at the Republican National Convention