A post at NRO’s The Corner reveals that universities that invited Jonathan Gruber to speak or sit in on expert panels are now “cleaning” their websites of videos of the MIT economist:
Videos from college conferences and Washington think tanks over the last few years show Gruber bragging about the law’s deliberate complexity and belittling American voters’ intelligence.
Now at least two colleges who hosted the professor have tried to scrub Gruber from the internet. The University of Pennsylvania removed Gruber’s October 2013 panel appearance — in which he laughed about “the stupidity of the American voter” — on November 10, but quickly reposted the video after withering criticism.
On Monday the University of Rhode Island took a page out of Penn’s book, removing a 2012 discussion where Gruber explains how the law was passed to “exploit” the American voters’ “lack of economic understanding.” URI offered no explanation on its webpage as to why the video was pulled.
This move is as unsurprising as it is cynical when you consider that the majority of college academicians are either liberal are very liberal. God forbid the words of a man whose name recently became mud be allowed to sully the perception of Barack Obama or his signature legislative achievement as golden.
The mainstream media have also slipped into overdrive in their feeble efforts explain away Gruber’s damning unsolicited comments as a nothingburger. Typical of the lot is John Cassidy of the New Yorker, who snickers:
After Solyndra-gate, Benghazi-gate, and I.R.S.-gate comes Gruber-gate — the latest flap over the 2010 Affordable Care Act. The controversy centers on Jon Gruber, an M.I.T. economist and health-care expert who, during the passage of the A.C.A., served as a highly remunerated consultant to the Obama Administration. In a series of talks at academic conferences, videos of which have recently surfaced, Gruber says that the creators of the A.C.A. deliberately misrepresented, or kept vague, some of its contents, seeking to exploit the “stupidity” of ordinary voters.
Cassidy advises that Sarah Kliff, of Vox, has “a good explainer” on how little the whole kerfuffle portends, but Kliff’s 2,000-word essay, punctuated with videos running between 3 and 53 minutes, requires an investment of time. You can get to the bottom of Grubergate a lot quicker and with a lot more candor by watching this refreshing presentation by a group that calls itself American Commitment.
(h/t Weasel Zippers)
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