National Review's Andrew Johnson joins host Greg Corombos. Today's topics: Clair McCaskill won't back Harry Reid as Senate minority leader, the media's misplaced anger about Grubergate, and outgoing Arkansas Democrat governor Mike Beebe plans to pardon his own son.
Besieged by stupid Americans, Media circles the wagons around Gruber
How can you be certain the discovery of Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber's repeated praise for the deception which resulted in the passage of the Affordable Care Act, and his acknowledgement of the "stupidity" of the American people to whom he and his Democratic allies successfully lied, is a major development? The media's response to this revelation.
Not only was Gruber's admission that the ACA was designed to hide its true costs and impact on the American economy already widely known, they say, but that the American public is generally to blame for Gruber's mendacity.
Calling his comments "the impolitic but ultimately unnewsworthy confessions of a single technocrat," The New Republic's Brian Beutler determined that the "finessing" of legislation is a common practice. "It's true that the bill's authors took steps to maximize its public appeal and minimize its vulnerabilities," he noted. "Everyone writing significant legislation does this."
Neil Irwin, writing in The New York Times, concurred that Gruber was essentially lamenting the existence of a system which lead politicians to craft laws that defraud scoring and oversight mechanisms and then brag getting one over on the public. "Mr. Gruber was, in an infelicitous way, expressing frustration with that state of affairs," Irwin charitably explained.
"Jonathan Gruber was right," The New York Times writer and MSNBC contributor Josh Barro insisted. "Public opinion on health care policy is just completely incoherent." He later insisted that the public's confusion "puts politicians in a position where the only thing they can do to make the public happy is lie and so, people lied."
They hate it when they have to hurt you, so don't make them do it...
Also read:
Nancy Pelosi: Who is this "Gruber" you speak of?
CNN: Hey, who's up for a fourth Gruber video?
