Romney -- "Corporations are People Too"

California Bob attempts to interpret politalk:

We all heard Romney's statement.  Interestingly, I first heard it one context, then re-visited it from another.  And the two contexts gave me a completely different picture.

The actual exchange was something like:

Romney: "There are two ways to fix the deficit.  One is to raise taxes on people."
Rabble: "Raise taxes on the corporations &%$#*@) !!!!!!!"
Romney: "Corporations are people too."

The first time I heard it, I thought Romney was saying that we should increase revenue to balance the budget (I should have known better).  And that sounded to me like this:

Romney: "There are two ways to fix the deficit.  One reasonable approach would be to raise revenue, by raising taxes on people."
Rabble: "Raise taxes on corporations &%$#*@) !!!!!!!"
Romney: "Corporations are people too.  So my suggestion stands: a reasonable approach is to raise taxes, including those on corporations."

...and I didn't see anything controversial about this.

It turns out that Romney was using this line of thought to denounce tax hikes.  So on second visit, it sounded like this:

Romney: "There are two ways to fix the deficit.  One crazy, destructive way, the solution offered by tax and spend liberals, is to raise taxes on people (sneer)."
Rabble: "Raise taxes on corporations &%$#*@) !!!!!!!"
Romney: "Corporations are people too.  And I will fight to protect corporations from any and all tax hikes."

And he came out sounding like a corporate apologist.

Exact same words, different picture.  There are lessons here about prejudice, naivete, hidden agendas, rushing to judgement, context, common sense, etc.  It would seem that pre-knowledge of a person and their agenda informs your interpretations of their behavior.     

Actually, I didn't hear what Romney said. I seem to remember that he ran for President last time, and he might be from New England, or maybe it's Michigan. Or Texas. Somewhere East of the Rockies in any case.