“You didn’t build that.”
This was essentially Samsung’s defense to charges by Apple that the former had stolen the latter’s intellectual property. This defense didn’t work. It got blown out of the water.
An American jury sided with Apple Friday and found that Apple did indeed “build that.” Jurors blistered Samsung with a billion dollar verdict. The shape of the communications industry is thus set to proceed on the same rules of all of American industries through all of American history: Apple owns what Apple built in the past or builds in the future.
The biggest jury of all is the American electorate, as I argue in the opening pages of my new book, “The Brief Against Obama: The Rise, Fall and Epic Fail of the Hope and Change Presidency.” I begin the book by quoting my law partner Gary Wolensky — a very fine, extraordinarily successful trial lawyer who defends American companies against ruinous claims brought by the plaintiffs’ bar. Gary trusts jurors because fairness is drilled into every American from an early age, and thus facts — if well presented — win cases. A strong attachment to justice in matters of property and responsibility is walking around in every American. Gary likes to go to trial because he believes in juries.
It looks like we should be trusting the American voter as well. The polls are moving in the direction of Romney/Ryan, and a lot of that movement is because the president dropped his guard for a moment when he gave the “You didn’t build that” speech, and Mitt Romney won’t let it pass.
He shouldn’t, nor did he when he appeared on my radio show Friday afternoon. “Everywhere I go, people are saying look, I did build this,” Romney told me. “And the people who work in this enterprise built it. It was not built by government. It was built by free people. And you know, the president says we’re taking him out of context, but go look at the rest of the speech. The context is worse than the quote, because he somehow casts aspersions on people who are working hard to get smarter, and people who are just working hard. The reality is America is a nation which has been built by individuals pursuing their dreams. And whether that’s to get the honor roll or get a promotion, or open a business.”
I also mentioned a number of specific entrepreneurs to the Republican nominee, as shorthand for every small-businessman or woman in America, every one of whom felt the sting of the president’s contempt for the hard work they had done and the risks they had taken.
This contempt is fueling a backlash. Among other things, it has enormous crowds flocking to Dinesh D’Souza’s big hit movie “2016.” The mainstream media’s reluctance to cover this astonishing story is as embarrassing for the Manhattan-Beltway media elite as their decision not to cover the first night of the GOP convention. The defensiveness of the suits in charge of old media is risible, but ineffective because the stories they attempt to suppress in defense of their all-time favorite president grow legs and sprint across the new media horizon.
It is now fairly an obligation of every conservative in the land to see “2016,” just as it is to tune in and watch Ann Romney whom the networks tried to consign to invisibility. (When you see the future first lady speak Tuesday night, you’ll know why Team Obama was initially thrilled with the attempt to bench her speech.)
So the big show opens tonight, and thanks to all the hands that built the stages, built the sound systems, built the vans that are driving me back and forth from St. Pete’s Beach to the convention center. Thanks to the engineers, designers, assembly line workers who built the many Apple devices that keep me connected, and to the men and women who built the satellite systems that will allow me to opine three hours a day from radio row.
And thanks to those jurors in California who have given us the best early indicator of how the country will vote in the fall.
Examiner Columnist Hugh Hewitt is a law professor at Chapman University Law School and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who blogs daily at HughHewitt.com.
