Jonathan Gruber let it slip. He thinks you're pretty much a moron. And, being a moron, you couldn't possibly understand legislation as complex and important as the Affordable Care Act. Actually, Gruber didn't merely let it slip - he repeatedly called Americans idiots, in the process affirming his own vastly superior intelligence.
And he obviously is a pretty smart guy. It's not easy getting into MIT and then earning a Harvard Ph.D. in economics. All his life Gruber was certainly told he was brilliant, destined for great things. But Gruber, blessed with a high IQ, was cursed by possessing not a smidgen of humility or common sense.
And so, over the past week, Americans have watched Jonathan Gruber, PhD go from Democratic star and savant to the man no one has ever heard of. Of course, if you rely on network news for your information, right about now you're scratching your head, asking, "Jonathan who?" But that's another story, one we'll leave to Bernie Goldberg and Howie Kurtz.
Do you think Jonathan Gruber is the only government big shot with a very low opinion of the American people? Or is he the one who happened to be the most in need of attention and got caught strutting and preening on camera?
President Obama's senior adviser on science and technology is a guy named John Holdren. Like Gruber, Holdren is among the cognitive elite, smart enough get accepted at MIT. Unlike Gruber, Holdren has kept a low profile. And that's probably a good thing; otherwise people might ask about some of the outrageous things he has written and said.
Back in the late 70s Holdren was worried about mass starvation due to overpopulation. He suggested that it could be reasonable for a benevolent government to sterilize people by spiking their drinking water. President Obama's science czar now insists he never actually advocated coercive approaches to population control.
But just a few years ago, Dr. Holdren suggested that 1-billion people could be killed by "global warming" by the end of this decade. Never mind that warming has taken an 18-year hiatus that has baffled scientists. John Holdren and many other "experts" want the government, not the marketplace, to decide which energy sources are best for you. Of course, they'll stick you with the bill.
Holdren and Gruber are just two prominent examples of influential government types who obviously doubt the ability of Americans to make rational decisions. And, let's face it, they're not totally wrong. As Jesse Watters proves almost every week, it's difficult to underestimate many citizens' lack of awareness. Public opinion polls are nearly as distressing as Watters' informal interrogations.
That being said, we don't need government officials who diminish and disparage average Americans. They should be engaging and persuading their fellow citizens, not demeaning us. If President Obama and liberal thinkers truly believe mass amnesty is a great thing for America, tell us why. Don't just write off opponents as nativist yahoos who are too dumb to understand. If they believe taxpayers should be pouring billions into inefficient wind turbines and money-losing solar farms, use the bully pulpit to explain. Don't simply assume that it's above our pretty little heads.
Elitism in government is nothing new. Woodrow Wilson could condescend with the best of 'em. But as government gets bigger and more powerful, so do the stakes. Jonathan Gruber helped President Obama perpetrate a massive fraud on the American people. It wasn't just a run-of-the-mill, Solyndra-scale, billion-dollar boondoggle. Transforming the health care system will resonate for decades, and it was based largely on lies and subterfuge.
The Supreme Court may overturn important provisions of ObamaCare, essentially leaving the law impotent. But even if that happens, picking up the pieces will affect every single American, causing widespread chaos and confusion. This entire mess did not have to happen, it could have been avoided if we had debated the law with honesty and transparency.
Americans, after being thoroughly "grubered," have lost more faith in our government, which was designed, as Lincoln put it, to be "a government of the people, by the people, for the people." We now have a government that is too often "of the powerful, by the experts, above the people." The rise and fall of Jonathan Gruber should be a wake-up call.
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