Let me be a devil's advocate on this a little more:
I think one of the important parts of the interview (for the controversy) is:
"So if I vote, will immigration know where I live? Will they come for my family and deport us?
OBAMA: Not true. And the reason is, first of all, when you vote, you are a citizen yourself."
When the interviewer says "deport us", it sounds like the 'me' here is not a citizen, so Obama should not have said 'not true' as a response to this.
Also, Obama says "when you vote, you are a citizen yourself" which sounds like voting -> citizen which is obviously nonsense but could be interpreted to go along with the interviewer's weird definition of citizen.
I think conservatives view this as Obama helping to create a viral video that will be interpreted by illegals as encouraging them to vote. Since it wouldn't be proper for him to tell illegals to vote directly, his awkward words let him send that message while allowing him to claim he was misinterpreted. i.e. if Obama wanted to do this, how would he do it differently than he did? (And he did say other things of substance as well so his supporters will claim that's all he was trying to say.)
I think one of the important parts of the interview (for the controversy) is:
"So if I vote, will immigration know where I live? Will they come for my family and deport us?
OBAMA: Not true. And the reason is, first of all, when you vote, you are a citizen yourself."
When the interviewer says "deport us", it sounds like the 'me' here is not a citizen, so Obama should not have said 'not true' as a response to this.
Also, Obama says "when you vote, you are a citizen yourself" which sounds like voting -> citizen which is obviously nonsense but could be interpreted to go along with the interviewer's weird definition of citizen.
I think conservatives view this as Obama helping to create a viral video that will be interpreted by illegals as encouraging them to vote. Since it wouldn't be proper for him to tell illegals to vote directly, his awkward words let him send that message while allowing him to claim he was misinterpreted. i.e. if Obama wanted to do this, how would he do it differently than he did? (And he did say other things of substance as well so his supporters will claim that's all he was trying to say.)