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“Accidental Transparency,” or “Nemesis Exacts Her Retribution on Jonathan Gruber. Again”
In the wake of a mini-scandal in which Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber committed another Kinsley gaffe, he went on friendly MSNBC yesterday and did a non-apology apology, saying he regretted speaking off the cuff, but not a word of regret about being accomplice to an economy-destroying series of lies.
This is sort of like his previous caught-on-video “speak-o” regarding the question of subsidies (which is going before the Supreme Court) where he claims to have just misspoken that one time, and then of course immediately after that, the fates conspired to reveal a second video where he made the same “speak-o.” Oops.
(By the way, if Obamacare goes down in flames because of Gruber’s “speak-o”s, here is the man who needs his own ticker-tape parade.)
And now, because Nemesis is a harsh goddess, immediately after saying he just “spoke off the cuff” about how Obamacare was passed by fooling the CBO and by lying to the American people, a second video has now surfaced where Gruber says once again that they screwed around with the language of Obamacare because “American voters are too stupid the understand the difference.”
Tempt Fate, and Fate will give in to temptation and bonk you on the head with a two-by-four.
I’ll say this: we need more people like Gruber around Washington, because they’re too stupid to keep their mouths shut about how Washington is screwing us over. Instead they brag about it.
More Grubers, please! The “most transparent administration in history” turns out to be exactly that. Not by design, but because of the arrogance and hubris of people who just can’t stop talking.
Published in General
Well said, Drew. I love it.
Like.
It’s a useful demonstration to all the rubes who supported Obama and the Democrats: you are voting for people who think you’re stupid and lie to you, regularly.
Next election I really want a GOP candidate to respond to another Democrat talking-point with the simple admonition: There you go, lying again. You Democrats have been lying to the American people for years, from Obamacare to the IRS to jobs and the economy. You think the voters are stupid, but they’re catching on and see through your rhinestone promises. Then watch the splutter.
If you’ve ever dealt with habitual liars, you know how this goes. Once the habit has been revealed (once you’ve discovered that this person has been lying to you, repeatedly, for weeks, months, or even years), you have to go back and rethink everything they’ve ever said and ask yourself once again “was that true?”
I’ve had the misfortune to have had a few people like that in my life. Even now, years later, when recalling an old conversation, I have to stop think “Oh, right. I heard that from _______, so it probably wasn’t true.”
Much re-evaluation has to be done on your end.
Of course, on the liar’s end, there’s often little grace. The liar will always been seen as a liar and untrustworthy. You can never take that person at his word again, because he’s shown that his word is meaningless.
So it is with Washington. Thanks to Gruber, we now know that this administration lied repeatedly to get Obamacare passed. What we need to be telling voters from here on out is: “what else have they lied to you about?”
Trey Gowdy (my favorite Congressional pit bull) went off on this theme.
So the message from conservatives needs to be, “voters, they’ve now admitted lying to you to get you to support something you never would have supported otherwise. And they’re laughing at you for being gullible.
What else are they lying to you about? Because they are. It’s what pathological liars do. It’s their nature.”
I think this is the era of Obama, honestly. They believe their own hype. They are so arrogant, and so condescending to typical Americans (i.e. “stupid voters”) that they honestly don’t see the problem with going around bragging about this sort of thing. It is like someone said about Obama himself; he surrounded himself with a certain sort of person, so that he actually came to believe that he was representative of “normal,” or that his ideas were popular. When conservatives come along, he sincerely thinks they’re crazy aberrations. So these elite liberals can talk about “stupid voters” and “conservatives” with no regard for what they think, because there couldn’t possibly be that many of them around, right?
“I’ve never met a single person who doesn’t love Obamacare.”
Like, Drew!
And now a third video has surfaced.
To borrow a phrase from Jonah Goldberg, the guy is a “crap weasel” (or words to that effect).
This guy is a living, breathing example of the pathology of the elites.
Once again, Tabula beats me to the point.
Gruber is no outlier. He is a mainstream Left Wing Elitist. He believes down to his very marrow that he and his buddies are smarter than everybody else, and if he has to lie to us, he’s only doing it for our own good.
This is the true pathology of the Left.
Lying is necessary during war. The left is at war with us and they are nobly willing to absorb the results of their lying because it’s for us that they do this. Being at war gives them a lot of latitude in their dealings with their enemies and even with their own people. Here’s my post about this: http://ricochet.com/the-nobility-of-the-left-a-bodyguard-of-lies-to-protect-the-truth/
And then Obama was re-elected. So the guy is evil, but his assessment is dead on.
Does not this whole kerfluffle bring up the issue of who are really the stupid ones? I don’t think the American people ever bought into Obamacare, so they aren’t the stupid ones in this instance. So who did buy into it? The Democratic congress. Of course, there may be a few of them actually stupid enough to believe Obama on this matter – but this is their day job, and I must assume the majority must have someone on staff to explain the ramifications of the bills they vote on. Nonetheless, they are the stupid ones – for thinking they could get away with this fiasco.
Oh, and Gruber can’t really be all that bright to keep getting tripped up by his own stupid big mouth, and he?
Wouldn’t it be amazing if our candidate did just that! I think I could truly become inspired by a political figure again if they did.
Well you know, us rubes never find ourselves at academic conferences, so who could have known?
Beautiful Drew. It is indeed a pleasure to watch this clown roast on a spit.
Give Gruber his own TV show! He is like Mario Brothers magic box, popping nuggets of gold every time he opens his mouth.
I disagree. Gruber and the other architects weren’t trying to fool liberals – true progressives knew from day 1 that universal healthcare meant that everyone would have to pay more (for them it’s a feature, not a bug). And of course, die-hard progressives love taxes, so they would have likely been just as enthusiastic for the PPACA if the individual mandate’s penalty had been scored as a tax.
The people Gruber is condescending are squishy, apolitical low information voters.
And here’s my problem: many conservatives also have great disdain for squishy, apolitical low information voters. There are comments almost daily on Ricochet insulting people too lazy to delve any deeper than sound bites and click-bait for their news.
Obviously the big difference lies in Gruber’s (and Democrat’s) willingness to lie and obfuscate. But I have heard just as much disdain for LIVs on Ricochet as I hear from all these “gotcha” interviews with him.
Has anyone identified the administration’s Jonathan Gruber for FCC internet regulation yet?
This pretty much sums up my problem.
We actually agree with Gruber’s sentiment, but we think he’s an [expletive] for saying it out loud.
How does that make us much better?
It does in a sense… we’re agreeing that people are stupid and then saying that the government should leave them to their own devices. The other side says people are stupid and therefore the government should run their lives. That makes our side inherently better. But the real danger is that they think a lot more people are stupid than we do. They think you and I are stupid, I can guarantee that.
Hmm…when you phrase it like that, I’m not sure that’s such an open-and-shut case for smaller government and leaving people alone.
Perhaps a more artful way of phrasing our common philosophy is that “people are usually very good at running their own lives, but much worse at choosing policy to run everyone’s collective lives.”
But I won’t be holding my breath for a Republican politician to bluntly tell his constituents that they should vote for him because they’re too stupid to know what is good public policy.
That’s brilliant. Artful, indeed. If you’re not in the political consulting business Mendel, then you’re in the wrong business.
Re: mendel #17
There’s a difference between ignorance (including rational ignorance) and stupidity.
Democrats think the electorate is too stupid to be trusted with the facts.
Republicans think the electorate is ignorant (mostly because the media is biased).
Dr. Gruber also demonstrated his belief that Americans are stupid back in July with his unpersuasive and ridiculous expansion of the definition of “typo” to sell the “legitimacy” of federal subsidies in states that didn’t set up their own exchanges.
Fortunately, we’ll soon get to see how many Supreme Court justices are stupid enough to believe him. The conservative justices won’t, but the others…
<facepalm>
One of the most telling things about Gruber’s “stupid voters” remark was not just that he repeated it, again and again, but that he was using it as a laugh line.
Saying that voter ignorance is a problem that is hurting this country is not the same as saying that it is an opportunity that we can use and exploit.
Everyone has made great comments on the Gruber situation.
I’m surprised at how willing he was to voice such a low opinion of the American electorate in these speeches. I’m surprised at how much video there was of all of this that was there for the YouTubing that wasn’t YouTubed until it was too late.
Although I’m not entirely sure Gruber has a point when it comes to Obamacare. As I understand it, this bill didn’t break 50% in the popularity polls. As best I can tell it was always unpopular as a whole because most people understood that the government was over-promising. So I’m not sure how many people Gruber really “tricked.”
But this is what gets me nervous about increasing the size and scope of government– this feeling that someone is in the backrooms trying to take me for a ride, saying one thing, while intending another. He’s really hurting his own cause though.
Jonathan Gruber is a Democratic Party operative whose sole mission in life since 2010 has been to pin the ACA to Mitt Romney.
This is an editorial he wrote on that subject. The fact that he wrote this piece and its content makes it very clear that Gruber was trying to get people to make the association.
And this is from an article from Forbes written by Avik Roy, an outside adviser to Romney when he was running for president, on Jonathan Gruber (the article contains some really good links to some excellent background):
My point is that Gruber has always tried to portray himself as an important Romney adviser, and some of his importance is in his own mind.
The Democrats successfully used Gruber to cost Romney support among Republicans, and it worked.
It’s the Low-Info voters and certain Media types that are the rubes. Yes, we have disdain for people who unthinkingly follow the Left/Liberal Bandwagon, but that’s the normal contempt for people who think they know what they’re doing (or saying) and don’t. It’s accented by there being an awful lot of holier-than-thou LIVs/Media Dragons. Quick to follow a trend and pour scorn on those of us who tried to speak truth to power (to abuse a phrase).
Gruber’s comments about voter stupidity don’t really kick in until Obama gets reelected. The ACA was created in darkness, not debated openly in either the House or Senate, and the American electorate did not vote to pass it.
Its not as if the tax on Cadillac plans was crafted after public deliberation and months of polling and eventually this Tool’s deceptive plan was approved with some overwhelming measure of voter support. No, the whole thing was passed without even letting the newly elected Senator Brown from Massachusetts vote on it. And the mechanics of the Cadillac tax were buried in the bowels of the 2,200 page atrocity, along with IPAB panels and all manner of odious provisions.
Again, Massachusetts elected a Republican senator to replace Ted Kennedy, not because they’d suddenly all become Tea Partiers, but in resounding objection to the APA. Republicans regained the House while BHO was being reelected, and have a solid majority in the Senate now. Not really so stupid if you think about it.
Dems did trot out the same sleight of hand after ACA passage, and it got slammed. Don’t worry, we won’t force the Hobby Lobby to pay premiums that cover abortions, we’ll force the insurance companies to pay for it. In the light of day, that con man approach was seen through and the president was slammed for it. Distinction without a difference.
Which means that this arrogant SOB was bragging just to hear himself, to pump up his cred before his peers. IF American voters had some say during the crafting and passage of Obamacare, Gruber might’ve had a point.
After watching the three Gruber video clips in a row, my blood really began to boil. How dare this elititist @$$#% brag about pulling the wool over the American people. The absolute nerve. Horsewhipping wouldn’t be enough retribution. If this doesn’t propell people to repeal Obamacare, nothing will.
I have read numerous statements – both on Ricochet and in the rightwingosphere at large – which don’t take your nuanced view, but rather indeed characterize low information voters as “too stupid to be trusted with facts.” Indeed, the word “stupid” is used far too frequently.
Also, remember that we are talking about “elites” in this discussion. Do we really think that Republican elites hold low information voters in higher esteem than Democrat elites do? After all, we are constantly complaining on Ricochet about how the Republican Establishment has nothing but contempt for its grassroots. Do you think they hold swing voters in much higher regard? I highly doubt it.