What Palin said:
“They’re our next-door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.”
A factual statement that is rendered ridiculous when you put it into context: Sarah Palin was stating that being able to see a remote corner of Russia from an island in Alaska (which she does not live on) gave her special insight into Russia’s political scene. The Fey joke is funny because it plays on the absurd idea that being “neighbors” with Russia qualifies as foreign policy experience.
What Obama said:
“If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”
A totally legitimate statement about how government R&D and government infrastructure are important to helping US businesses succeed that only sounds bad if you take it out of context, making it seem like the “that” in “you didn’t build that” is referring to the business instead of the infrastructure that supports businesses.
Context: it kind of matters.