Barack Obama’s statement to a Virginia audience that business owners didn’t really build their businesses, because no one can succeed without government as their senior partner, has produced an intense backlash from the business community.  I’ll stand bythe marker I put down yesterday, and wager that “If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that” will go down in history as one of the “gaffes” (in reality, accidental bursts of inconvenient honesty) that define the Obama presidency, along with “the private sector is doing fine,” and Obama’s assertion that the big mistake of his first timer was his failure “to tell a story to the American people.”

Twitchy.com collected a tidal wave of Twitter messages from small business owners firing back at the President.  One business owner asked the President, “so who exactly built MY business?  You mean I could have just slept all those late nights while someone ELSE built it?”  Another, colder response: “I reject your assertion that others built my business and resent your cavalier attitude toward my efforts.”

A few respondents drove home the point that Barack Obama knows absolutely nothing about running a business of any size, and apparently thinks entrepreneurs spend their days reclining on couches and sipping chardonnay while counting their profits: “If someone else built my business, why am I the one who lays awake at night wondering how I am going to make payroll?” asked one disgusted businessman, while another declared, “Feel better now that I know the government built my business for me.  I’ll let them stay up nights worrying about it.”