I'd consider giving Maher a few points for intellectual honesty, but the rest of his analysis is so irredeemably riddled with inaccuracies and false assumptions that any credit he earned was quickly revoked. Nevertheless, this clip is worthwhile because it features a committed Lefty trying to cajole accomplished liar Debbie Wasserman Schultz into admitting that the president's obvious lie was, in fact, a lie. The resulting exchange was vintage Debbie:
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DWS insists that Obama's 'Four Pinocchios' promise was not a lie because it only applied to the "vast majority" of people, even though he never made that distinction in his rhetoric. Her approach to combating the "lie" accusation was to deny, then lie, lie away. Perfect. She also had the gall to refer to the millions of affected Americans as "minutiae," which is insulting on its face, and fails to account for the fact that the issue is likely to affect tens of millions over the next few years. Maher kicks off the discussion by asking two questions: First, was the lie worth it if it furthered a noble goal? And second, would Obamacare have passed if Democrats had been truthful about the millions of Americans whose coverage would be dropped. If Americans' answer to the first inquiry is 'yes,' then we're lost. (The president's polling suggests that people are none too pleased with this deceit). On the second point, the answer is pretty clear: No. That's why White House aides debated telling the truth and ultimately decided against it; being honest would have fatally imperiled the legislation. So "let's lie" won out. Maher also congratulates his side of the aisle for having the integrity to be self-critical. "We're not like them, we don't live in the bubble," he preens. His entire panel then proceeds to either dispute the notion that the president lied, or dismissed it as a non-issue. This is classic bubblespeak. Maher goes on to express bafflement at those people who may foolishly want to keep their "crappy" insurance policies. Setting aside the airtight promise, many of the victims of this betrayal don't believe their existing coverage was poor. As the Obamacare debate began in 2009, nearly nine out of ten privately-insured Americans were satisfied with their care. Numerous examples of people being booted from their current plans into more expensive, less desirable ones are proliferating. In one particularly devastating instance of this phenomenon, a stage-four cancer patient explains why she falls into the "Obamacare loserObamacare loser" column. Minutiae:
Everyone now is clamoring about Affordable Care Act winners and losers. I am one of the losers. My grievance is not political; all my energies are directed to enjoying life and staying alive, and I have no time for politics. For almost seven years I have fought and survived stage-4 gallbladder cancer, with a five-year survival rate of less than 2% after diagnosis. I am a determined fighter and extremely lucky. But this luck may have just run out: My affordable, lifesaving medical insurance policy has been canceled effective Dec. 31. My choice is to get coverage through the government health exchange and lose access to my cancer doctors, or pay much more for insurance outside the exchange (the quotes average 40% to 50% more) for the privilege of starting over with an unfamiliar insurance company and impaired benefits...After four weeks of researching plans on the website, talking directly to government exchange counselors, insurance companies and medical providers, my insurance broker and I are as confused as ever. Time is running out and we still don't have a clue how to best proceed.
Read the whole thing. It's heartbreaking and infuriating. This woman has been fighting for her life for seven years, and now she's faced with choosing among a menu of broken promises. How did the Obama White House respond to her op/ed? By promoting a left-wing hatchet piece to attack the victim's credibility by blaming her insurers. Yes, really:
The Real Reason That The Cancer Patient Writing In Today’s Wall Street Journal Lost Her Insurance http://t.co/b4Dx1Jq2ts via @TPHealth
— Dan Pfeiffer (@pfeiffer44) November 4, 2013
Appalling. The administration's new Obamacare messaging "strategy" is to try to change the subject. Dismissing a frightened woman battling late-stage cancer doesn't seem like a savvy method of "pivoting" to anything-but-Obamacare. I'll leave you with a Washington Post story about the dangerous insularity and obsession with politics that led Obama down the path of totally blowing the roll-out of his signature law. These problems were years in the making. CBS News is hearing similar stories. "The warnings were specific and dire -- and ignored:"
Three years.