I’m hoping that Gruber’s videos are Obamacare’s Zimmerman telegram.
I hope Gruber’s name becomes synonymous with lying the way Benedit Arnold’s and Quisling’s are with treason.
“He was Grubering his ass off.”
“There are Grubers, damned Grubers, and statistics.”
“Bill Clinton was impeached for Grubering during court testimony.”
No need to invent new words. There is already “Climategate.”
Calling Professor Gruber out for lying is simply and plainly wrong.
The equivalent would have been had President Clinton during his “meaning of the word is-is” deposition leaned back in his chair, lapsed into his best good-ol-boy drawl and volunteered, “When I told the rubes on the Tee-Vee that I did not have ‘. . . relations with that woman . . .’, y’all know I was using the strict law statute definition of the word ‘relations’ in that context. It has a precise legal meaning, y’know.” Or “Your question “is” their a relationship? In her mind, yeah, but as far as I’m concerned, I broke off whatever kind of non-relations flirtation we had some months ago, but y’know what kind of ideas these young women get . . .”
That kind of down-home truth telling would have been “Grubering.”
Nobody’s calling him out as a liar for arrogantly exposing the lie; they’re calling him out as a liar for the lie he arrogantly exposed.
It’s like claiming Clinton’s impeachment was “all about sex,” when it was really about perjury and obstruction of justice.
Grubering is a terrible thing but I’m far from certain it is a lie.
Is it a lie to assert that voters (or a sizable faction thereof) are ignorant of (or to use the vernacular, “stupid” regarding) the economics of government policies?
Is it a lie to assert that various tax options favored by economic theorists are neither understood by the voters nor politically supported by the voter’s elected representatives?
Is it a lie to assert that the Congressional Budget Office’s “scoring” methods can be subverted by legislative obfuscation?
The whole series of Grubers ACA shenanigans more resembles what I would characterize as “Kinsley Gaffes” rather than lies.
What Michael Mann has done and continues to do, however, is anything other than “accidentally utter the truth and/or his true opinion”. Mann is, — legal diclaimer emphasized: IN MY OPINION — serially and seriously intentional in his utterances, especially when he intends to deceive the public, the courts, and the academic peers who honestly critique his work.
The lies aren’t in the Gruber videos. He’s telling the truth in them. The truth he tells is about all the lies that were used to sell it. As I tweeted the other day, sane people are angry at Gruber for all the lies. Dems and the media are mad at him because he told the truth.
So why are “sane” people mad at Dr. Gruber? He is telling the truth (or at least the archival videos are) and Mr. Obama (or Ms. Pelosi) don’t seem to have much recall of who he is . . .
Because despite his truth-telling in the videos, he was complicit in the deception.
“Because despite his truth-telling in the videos, he was complicit in the deception.”
So before “Jim” comes along and corrects my understanding of this, it appears that Senator Obama hammered and hammered and hammered Senator McCain about “wanting to do away with employer (tax preferenced) health insurance”, President Obama gets elected on that platform, and he has an Oscar Sierra moment that his health reform plan needs to somehow be rid of employer tax preferenced health insurance, only “my finger prints cannot be on this.” So genius MIT econ professor suggests a tax on “Cadillac health plans”, where no one thinks they have a “Cadillac health plan” giving all of the co-pays and provider restrictions they are getting, only because of health-care inflation, in a couple years, anyone with job health insurance will indeed have a heavily-taxed Cadillac plan?
Rand, we here on the Right Blogosphere fell for this too, and out of our own vanity? The unions understood this and that is why they were howling about Cadillac plans, only although we were opposed to Health Care Reform from the beginning, we were too busy dissing the unions and telling them to carry their love child to term for sleeping with Democrats that we ignored the warning that non-union people were also at risk?
So Rand, you are ragging on Sammy “The Bull” Gravano for turning State’s Evidence against mobster boss John Gotti because Gravano was as complicit as Gotti?
So Rand, you are ragging on Sammy “The Bull” Gravano for turning State’s Evidence against mobster boss John Gotti because Gravano was as complicit as Gotti?
Gruber didn’t turn State’s Evidence. He got caught bragging about lying to the public several times.
A lot of people didn’t like the Cadillac tax and said so at the time. It wasn’t ignored because people on the right are not fond of Unions. I don’t recall anyone noticing that it was designed to eliminate employee provided insurance altogether but there were endless claims that if you had employer based insurance, you would not even be effected by Obamacare.
Also, critics claimed that Obamacare was intended to destroy the old system to pave the way to single payer and Jonathan Gruber (You know he is a dbag cause he goes by his full name) has been giving speeches about how Obama and the Democrats intended to do this but couldn’t act in good faith because they wouldn’t be able to get it through a congress that was in firm control of the Democrats.
Oh wait, Gruber was just talking about ending employer provided insurance not transitioning to a single payer system. That would require other actions on the private insurance front. Looks like there is another shoe to drop.
Well, is Professor Gruber the Left’s answer to Lt Col. Oliver North, USMC, Ret.?
Col. North was accused (by the special prosecutor) of being a liar, but when he broke his silence, he was engaged in some heavy duty truth telling, much of it uncomfortable to the Reagan Administration — what he called “the really neat idea” of trading arms for hostages, overcharging the Iranians for the arms, and using the profits to fund the Contra rebels? The Reagan White House didn’t want to admit to any of this, but he was out there saying, hey, this is not a bug but a feature?
I think that we should now call it the “United States Gruberment.”
I think we should call Dr. Jon “Hans” Gruber. Because the ethics are about the same.
I’m hoping that Gruber’s videos are Obamacare’s Zimmerman telegram.
I hope Gruber’s name becomes synonymous with lying the way Benedit Arnold’s and Quisling’s are with treason.
“He was Grubering his ass off.”
“There are Grubers, damned Grubers, and statistics.”
“Bill Clinton was impeached for Grubering during court testimony.”
No need to invent new words. There is already “Climategate.”
Calling Professor Gruber out for lying is simply and plainly wrong.
The equivalent would have been had President Clinton during his “meaning of the word is-is” deposition leaned back in his chair, lapsed into his best good-ol-boy drawl and volunteered, “When I told the rubes on the Tee-Vee that I did not have ‘. . . relations with that woman . . .’, y’all know I was using the strict law statute definition of the word ‘relations’ in that context. It has a precise legal meaning, y’know.” Or “Your question “is” their a relationship? In her mind, yeah, but as far as I’m concerned, I broke off whatever kind of non-relations flirtation we had some months ago, but y’know what kind of ideas these young women get . . .”
That kind of down-home truth telling would have been “Grubering.”
Nobody’s calling him out as a liar for arrogantly exposing the lie; they’re calling him out as a liar for the lie he arrogantly exposed.
It’s like claiming Clinton’s impeachment was “all about sex,” when it was really about perjury and obstruction of justice.
Grubering is a terrible thing but I’m far from certain it is a lie.
Is it a lie to assert that voters (or a sizable faction thereof) are ignorant of (or to use the vernacular, “stupid” regarding) the economics of government policies?
Is it a lie to assert that various tax options favored by economic theorists are neither understood by the voters nor politically supported by the voter’s elected representatives?
Is it a lie to assert that the Congressional Budget Office’s “scoring” methods can be subverted by legislative obfuscation?
The whole series of Grubers ACA shenanigans more resembles what I would characterize as “Kinsley Gaffes” rather than lies.
What Michael Mann has done and continues to do, however, is anything other than “accidentally utter the truth and/or his true opinion”. Mann is, — legal diclaimer emphasized: IN MY OPINION — serially and seriously intentional in his utterances, especially when he intends to deceive the public, the courts, and the academic peers who honestly critique his work.
The lies aren’t in the Gruber videos. He’s telling the truth in them. The truth he tells is about all the lies that were used to sell it. As I tweeted the other day, sane people are angry at Gruber for all the lies. Dems and the media are mad at him because he told the truth.
So why are “sane” people mad at Dr. Gruber? He is telling the truth (or at least the archival videos are) and Mr. Obama (or Ms. Pelosi) don’t seem to have much recall of who he is . . .
Because despite his truth-telling in the videos, he was complicit in the deception.
“Because despite his truth-telling in the videos, he was complicit in the deception.”
So before “Jim” comes along and corrects my understanding of this, it appears that Senator Obama hammered and hammered and hammered Senator McCain about “wanting to do away with employer (tax preferenced) health insurance”, President Obama gets elected on that platform, and he has an Oscar Sierra moment that his health reform plan needs to somehow be rid of employer tax preferenced health insurance, only “my finger prints cannot be on this.” So genius MIT econ professor suggests a tax on “Cadillac health plans”, where no one thinks they have a “Cadillac health plan” giving all of the co-pays and provider restrictions they are getting, only because of health-care inflation, in a couple years, anyone with job health insurance will indeed have a heavily-taxed Cadillac plan?
Rand, we here on the Right Blogosphere fell for this too, and out of our own vanity? The unions understood this and that is why they were howling about Cadillac plans, only although we were opposed to Health Care Reform from the beginning, we were too busy dissing the unions and telling them to carry their love child to term for sleeping with Democrats that we ignored the warning that non-union people were also at risk?
So Rand, you are ragging on Sammy “The Bull” Gravano for turning State’s Evidence against mobster boss John Gotti because Gravano was as complicit as Gotti?
So Rand, you are ragging on Sammy “The Bull” Gravano for turning State’s Evidence against mobster boss John Gotti because Gravano was as complicit as Gotti?
Gruber didn’t turn State’s Evidence. He got caught bragging about lying to the public several times.
A lot of people didn’t like the Cadillac tax and said so at the time. It wasn’t ignored because people on the right are not fond of Unions. I don’t recall anyone noticing that it was designed to eliminate employee provided insurance altogether but there were endless claims that if you had employer based insurance, you would not even be effected by Obamacare.
Also, critics claimed that Obamacare was intended to destroy the old system to pave the way to single payer and Jonathan Gruber (You know he is a dbag cause he goes by his full name) has been giving speeches about how Obama and the Democrats intended to do this but couldn’t act in good faith because they wouldn’t be able to get it through a congress that was in firm control of the Democrats.
Oh wait, Gruber was just talking about ending employer provided insurance not transitioning to a single payer system. That would require other actions on the private insurance front. Looks like there is another shoe to drop.
Well, is Professor Gruber the Left’s answer to Lt Col. Oliver North, USMC, Ret.?
Col. North was accused (by the special prosecutor) of being a liar, but when he broke his silence, he was engaged in some heavy duty truth telling, much of it uncomfortable to the Reagan Administration — what he called “the really neat idea” of trading arms for hostages, overcharging the Iranians for the arms, and using the profits to fund the Contra rebels? The Reagan White House didn’t want to admit to any of this, but he was out there saying, hey, this is not a bug but a feature?
I think that we should now call it the “United States Gruberment.”
I think we should call Dr. Jon “Hans” Gruber. Because the ethics are about the same.