Obama runs from Gruber, calls him 'Some Adviser Who Never Worked on Our Staff'

For a week, now, any media source with a shred of integrity has been discussing the Jonathan Gruber story. The fact that someone so closely tied to the law has admitted to the truth behind its passage is huge news. There's just no way around that.

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So, this weekend at the closing of the G20 summit in Australia, Fox News White House correspondent Ed Henry decided he'd ask the President about his newest scandal. The answer was stunning. First of all, despite the fact that it's been in the news for a week - and despite the fact that Obama gets all his info "the way you do" by reading the papers - he begins by claiming he "just heard about this." Already, he's stretched credibility past the breaking point. There's simply no way he wasn't briefed on this story from day one. It gets worse from there. After claiming that he didn't mislead the American people about ObamaCare, keeping your plan, etc, he says of Gruber:

“The fact that some adviser who was never on our staff expressed an opinion that I completely disagree with in terms of the voters is not a reflection on the actual process that was run.”

Like Pelosi, Obama is clearly terrified of being attached to the name Jonathan Gruber. It may be true that the "architect" wasn't part of Obama's immediate staff but the hoops the President has to jump through in order to write the adviser off are simply ridiculous. To do so, you have to ignore all of the money that the federal and state governments have paid to this man. When you're dealing with a non-budget of trillions, it's easy to pretend that $5.9 million (at least) is no big deal. But, in reality, that's a ton of money to go to one federal adviser. Even if you factor in our extremely wasteful government, six million dollars is not chump change. Only someone viewed as holding an extremely high-level of importance would successfully demand that kind of dough. Then, of course, you have to take Gruber's claims into account as well. Far from being "some adviser," Gruber has stated, plainly, that he helped write the law. Nancy Pelosi aside, virtually no one is really challenging that. Beyond that, he seemed to have an impressive level of Presidential access for just being "some adviser." In fact, Gruber claims that he was instrumental in advising the President - directly and in person - regarding his self-described "tricks" that would help slide the bill through Congress. As he says:

“Now, the problem is it’s a political nightmare, and people say ‘no, you can’t tax my benefits.’ So what we did a lot in that room was think about - talk about - well how could we make this work? … And Obama's like "well y'know" ...I mean he's really a realistic guy. He was like, ‘look, I can’t just do this.’ He said "it’s just not going to happen politically. The bill will not pass. How do we manage to get there through phase-ins and other things?" ....And we talked about it. He was just very interested in that topic.”

How, precisely, do you go from having that conversation with the supposed "leader of the free world" to being someone of whom this administration claims to barely have knowledge? ....Apparently, you admit the truth of the scam you pulled. That's how.