Worse than watching the old CBS water-carrier pontificate about being snookered (against the backdrop of him selling this insufferable BS for four years) is the old ideological coot, Bob Schieffer, being too entrenched in his own elite liberalism to recognize that Gruber wasn’t disparaging the deception needed to pass ObamaCare – HE WAS BRAGGING ABOUT IT.
Idiot.
Bob Schieffer takes to the airwaves to proclaim he is just “dumbstruck” that Jonathan Gruber would be making such statements about how they constructed the law to deceive the American electorate.
SCHIEFFER: I was dumbstruck when I heard the comments that are surfacing from an economist named Jonathan Gruber, who was paid $400,000 to help shape the president’s health care plan. First, he allowed as how the plan passed only because of a lack of transparency and, this is a direct quote, “the stupidity of the American people.” (More accurately, “lack of transparency is a huge political advantage” is also a direct quote from Gruber).
Then Friday our Nancy Cordes found a couple of other things he said (only after they were “found” first by conservative media outlets, starting with NewsBusters, the first major site to report on Gruber’s appalling comments) going back to 2011 —
GRUBER: … first by mislabeling it, calling it a tax on insurance plans rather than a tax on people and we all know it’s really a tax on people who hold those insurance plans.
SCHIEFFER: And there was this about Massachusetts’ health care plan —
GRUBER: The dirty secret in Massachusetts is the feds pay for our bill, OK … Ted Kennedy and smart people in Massachusetts (like me, seeing how Gruber was also instrumental in creating the 2006 Bay State health law — “Romneycare” — that became the template for Obamacare) had basically figured out a way to sort of rip off the feds for about $400 million a year. (aka, ripping off taxpayers).
SCHIEFFER: I’ll be honest — while I favor health insurance (a show of hands for all those opposed to health insurance, and auto insurance, and homeowners’ …?) I am not wild about the new plan and how it became law either. (Welcome to the club, Bob, mere half-decade late).
But here is my question for Mr. Gruber — if all this was as bad as you say, why did you take the money you earned as an adviser? Nor is it too late to give it back. What we have here is another example of the sorry state of American politics where people take money for things in which they don’t believe and whether it’s good for the American people is not even a question. As for the president, he may want to consider that old politician’s prayer — Lord, I can take care of my enemies, just protect me from my friends.
(Transcript link)
