Posted on 11/19/2014 8:39:38 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Gruber, who was paid half a million dollars to design Obamacare, is on tape bragging about how the Democrats relied on "the stupidity of the American voter" to pass that law. Which, ironically, was sort of a stupid thing to say on camera.
By now there are so many tapes of Gruber explaining how Obamacare fooled stupid Americans that they're being released as a boxed set in time for Christmas.
Gruber, who will hereafter be known as "the architect of Obamacare," said:
"If you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in -- if you made it explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed. ... Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass."
The Downing Street memo consisted of minutes from a July 2002 meeting of British labor, defense and intelligence officials during the run-up to the Iraq War, in which the MI6 head, Richard Dearlove, reportedly said that "Bush wanted to remove Saddam Hussein, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
These notes from a British cabinet meeting were called the smoking gun of Bush's lying his way into war.
The Downing Street memo was written about in dozens of New York Times articles -- including six hysterical Frank Rich op-eds. It has been mentioned more than a hundred times in The Washington Post. It was covered on ABC's "Nightline," by George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week," on NBC's "Meet the Press" -- even on the "Today" show. It was discussed nightly on MSNBC, where Keith Olbermann covered it like it was Kim Kardashian and he was the E! Network.
By contrast, this week, NBC's Chuck Todd dismissed the Gruber tapes as "a political story" and The New York Times said of Gruber: "In truth, his role was limited." (NYT, March 28, 2012: "Mr. Gruber helped the administration put together the basic principles of the proposal, (then) the White House lent him to Capitol Hill to help congressional staff members draft the specifics of the legislation.")
But when the Downing Street memo came out, conservatives weren't allowed to say, Yeah, well, the British memo writer didn't have anything to do with the president's decision to go to war -- even though that guy really didn't have anything to do with it.
Those weren't Tony Blair's notes. They were a secretary's interpretation of the MI6 chief's interpretation of the Bush administration's argument to the United Nations. It's like a movie review, written by someone who knew someone who had seen the movie.
The memo writer also wasn't being paid $400,000 by the Bush administration to make Iraq War policy. Jonathan Gruber was paid that much -- plus another several million from the states -- to design Obamacare.
You don't pay a half-million dollars to someone who is only peripherally involved in making policy. (Unless we're talking about Obama himself.)
There was no tape of Bush and Blair running around saying: Trust this guy -- the memo writer is our guide! But that's what Obama, Nancy Pelosi, then-Sen. John Kerry and other Democrats said about Gruber.
-- Kerry on Oct. 1, 2009: "(Gruber) has been our guide on a lot of this ..."
-- Pelosi on Nov. 5, 2009: "Our bill brings down rates -- I don't know if you have seen Jonathan Gruber's MIT analysis ..."
-- Obama's Organizing for Action website, until the tapes surfaced: "Jon Gruber, who helped write Obamacare ..."
Gruber had more than a dozen meetings at the White House during the drafting of Obamacare. The Downing Street memo writer had no meetings at the Bush White House. Even the guy he was quoting had only one.
The outrage over the Downing Street memo concerned the claim -- in the memo writer's words -- that the intelligence was being "fixed" around a policy. Although a number of commentators claimed that the British meaning of "fixed" is more like "arranged," let's assume "fixed" implies trickery.
It's still one word! Gruber has given six different speeches rambling at length about how Obamacare was intended to deceive "stupid" voters.
You can't say the Downing Street memo was a totally legitimate news story, but that the Gruber tapes are meaningless.
Ninety-nine percent of Americans were utterly unaffected by the invasion of Iraq -- other than to be made safer, until Obama threw our victory away. Every American is affected by Obamacare.
The bald-faced lies told to pass Obamacare expose not only that law, but all Democratic economic claims. When Obama boasts that it will be a huge boon to the economy to give amnesty to millions of low-wage workers, who won't pay income taxes but will need a lot of government services, remember: Obamacare was supposed to save money, too.
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
nobody has ever produced the actual memo...
Jonathon Gruber is the new Monica Lewinsky.
I actually quit being frustrated by the MSM.
Their ratings are in the tank, no one is reading their publications, anyways. Hell, even with a brick wall they’ve placed around the president his poll numbers are still tanking
exactly
I think some freepers have pretty much stopped watching TV altogether and a lot don’t watch TV news.
I get my news here at FR
The only idiots are the president, and the democrats that voted for it. I didn’t talk to anyone who thought it was a good plan.
Weak...
It wasn’t the American people who were stupid, it was the people in Congress who voted for it. The American people were against it from the beginning, and it was part of the reason for the Tea Party movement.
I remember seeing that Senator from Mo. Claire McHissyKaniptionFit ask in dumb wonder, what is the matter, why is everyone so upset?
If she had read the bill she would have known why the people opposed it. I know a lot of people that planned on voting against her until stumble bum opened his mouth and inserted his foot in mouth with respect to legitimate rape.
I really hope she goes down to defeat next time around.
On a tangential note, today the Times published yet another story on the WMD in Iraq and how the injuries suffered by our troops were hushed up. Just short of 5,000 chemical weapons were found by U.S. military, some of them when chemical IEDs blew up on our soldiers. The British discovered sarin weapons, as well.
I don’t hear any apologies about the constant “Bush lied” taunts we had to suffer through for the entire duration of what war and even now by the no-information types. I don’t see any outrage about the media cover-up.
Just thought I’d mention.
People are still writing lefty books mentioning the “fake” WMD.
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