Are the poor lazy, or are the lazy poor?

It seems that I am hearing the invective phrase, that so-and-so republican really said in his speech that, “the poor are lazy”. This phrase is often attributed to a democrat or liberal leaning media person or pundit.
Forgetting the political nature of this statement in the first place, and trying not to take a side in the partisan argument, my issue falls in the fact that the statement itself is carefully crafted to be inaccurately damning a class. The reference is that someone, or some group, who doesn’t like or care for the poor really believes that that if you are poor then you must be lazy. But, if you read the original statements, and not the convenient sound bite, what they are saying is, “if you are lazy, then you likely will be poor.” The former statement damns a class, the latter damns a behavior.
Words matter and when one reads the interpretation of another’s words it is a good idea to actually read the original statement and remember that in politics, each of the replies, regardless of party, has been manipulated, crafted and tested to provide a vilification effect on the opposing interest, regardless of the original intent or context.
Words and their order in a phrase can alter meaning. These slight placement differences are never accidental. We are in an age where most of politics is now based on some form of fraud. And it is we who now suffer its effects.  In the world or profligate soundbites we know longer think–just emote– and the effect on us and our society is building to a catastrophic conclusion.
If we are to combat this soundbite, words as weapons, mentality we must first and always correct the semantic error and then argue the real point. In this case, we need to make sure the point is not the the poor are lazy but that if you are lazy you will likely be poor.  Then, one can argue the real point and not get bound up by false emotional relativism.
Perhaps we should go back to thinking!