My Politico column today:
Obama’s promise on insurance wasn’t just injudicious, it was completely impossible. It wasn’t an incidental falsehood but ran counter to the central premise of his own health care law. People losing their current insurance isn’t an unintended consequence of the law; it is an intended consequence without which much of the law doesn’t work.
In short, Obama’s lie runs so deep that perhaps even Bill Clinton — who had his law license suspended for dissembling under oath — can’t fathom all of its implications.
If Democrats were inclined to catch the falling flag of Obama’s credibility, they might take a page from the 1990s and insist that “everyone lies about historic health care legislation.” Almost by the hour, it becomes clearer that they aren’t so inclined. They not only tied themselves to the law, they repeated Obama’s false promise themselves, and evidently don’t appreciate it one bit.
Maybe they genuinely didn’t know better. Our representatives in Congress can’t be expected to read or understand legislation they support to transform a major sector of the American economy. These are busy and important people. But at the very least, the president’s policy staff could have let them in on the joke.