Grubering Junior College

Kerry Daugherty wrote a fairly sensible column in the Virginian Pilot today. She made the point that Obama’s promise of “free” junior college was a deception. She said that “… he's [Obama’s] treating Americans as people who lack critical-thinking skills.” Because, of course, Junior college will not be free, just like primary schools are not free, roads are not free, garbage collection isn’t free and ObamaPhones are not free. But she pulled her punch. Perhaps because she wanted to get her column printed.

She should have said that we’re being “Grubered,” a verb that came into vogue following the now-infamous series of outbursts by MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber about how the Obama administration depended on the stupidity of the American people to pass ObamaCare.

You can be sure that the Gruber-aping editorial board of the Virginian Pilot was be in full throated support of “free” junior college and spend tons of ink condemning the knuckle-dragging, sister-marrying, anti-science Republicans for their war on education.

ANDREA MITCHELL REJECTS OWN NETWORK'S POLL SHOWING AMERICANS AGREE WITH CIA INTERROGATION TACTICS

The poll Mitchell wasn’t buying was an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released earlier that day. The poll revealed that 51 percent of respondents felt that the interrogation practices used during the Bush era were acceptable. Only 28 percent said they went too far and were wrong.

But speaking to NBC’s chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel, Mitchell warned her audience against her own network’s polling, saying that polling is “always an imprecise measure because of the way questions are asked.”

Engel seemed to agree with Mitchell’s intimation that the poll could be wrong. He told Mitchell that those who answered the poll were just responding emotionally and that they might be proven morally wrong by “history.”

Then Mitchell seemed to announce her distrust of democracy itself, saying, “Should public opinion really be setting policy?”

Jounolists: politicians with bylines.  Typical of the ruling class.  Mitchell is the Jonathan Gruber of journalism.

Gruber and the Democrats go Head to Head

The nut of why this whole episode is so infuriating, when it isn’t enervating, are the repeated insults done to America’s collective intelligence by those who believe themselves to be members of a superior class. That condition is made even more insufferable by those Obamacare supporters who are attempting to rewrite the history of the ACA in order to airbrush Gruber out of the picture.

The Federalist’s Sean Davis has a compelling piece on this phenomenon, and it’s worth your full attention. It concludes…

Come. On. I hate to break it to you all, but Gruber doesn’t get to be an architect of Obamacare and Romneycare when you want to use his authority and credentials to bash Republicans or spin for the law, and then radically transform into one of three Jon Grubers who just happens to live in Obama’s neighborhood once Gruber becomes a massive liability for the Left.

Gruber was one of the key architects of Obamacare. He didn’t just build econometric simulation models based on the law. He was also involved in drafting its key components. And he was paid enormous sums of money for his advice and counsel. These are facts. Accept them, learn to deal with them, and give the embarrassingly bad Gruber Truthing a rest.