http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/speechwriter-obama-didnt-lie-about-obamacare-he-just-didnt-understand-how-it-worked/Speechwriter: Obama Didn’t Lie About ObamaCare, He Just Didn’t Understand How It Worked
January 31, 2014 by Daniel Greenfield
The Obama approval ratings are apparently bad enough that they’re going with the, “He’s not a liar, he’s just stupid” defense.
At an AEI event on the secrets of the State of the Union speech, former President Obama speechwriter Jon Lovett acknowledged that the “keep your health care plan” pledge didn’t turn out to be as accurate as the administration planned.
That’s PR speak for, “It was a complete and total lie from beginning to end.” How accurate did the administration hope that a claim that had no basis in fact would be on a scale from one to minus zero?
If Obama were to accidentally nuke Cleveland, PR speak would be, “Obama regrets not contributing to Cleveland’s net development as much as he wishes he could.”
I can tell you that that that statement that that that about the way the law was work was something that was perhaps not examined closely enough at the time, but it was never, ever something that was viewed as not being true but something that should be said anyway. It was viewed as something that largely described the underlying structure of this bill and that is absolutely true.
Remember kids, this man is a speechwriter. Don’t try this at home.
Lovett isn’t saying that it was viewed as “true” in the sense that it described people actually being able to keep their plans and their doctors, but true in some deeper structural sense that wouldn’t actually allow them to keep their plans and their doctors.
No wait. I’m sorry. That “largely” would do that. Because there wasn’t enough PR speak or enough lawyerisms in that sentence already. Between the double negatives and contradictory phrasing, that entire paragraph has enough weaseling to kill an entire barn of chickens.
You know, these are people that thought they would be able to keep their plans because the president said so and I think the president made this point himself. That’s, that is, that is just the reality of the situation and I think it’s unfortunate that at that ensnared more people than they thought.
Let’s walk that gibberish back for a moment.
The upshot of this is that Obama repeatedly claimed something that wasn’t true because
A. He was lying
B. He was incompetent
Those are really the options here. Considering that the regulations were written to kill the maximum number of plans, the buck stops with him either way.
Now Lovett wants to claim that Obama wasn’t out to destroy everyone’s health plans, but that he just had no idea that health care isn’t magic. That’s fine.
It’s not like he occupies some important responsible position or championed the legislation that was responsible for this mess.
