Obamacare: National media finally turn on Obama — and Nancy Pelosi

The national media are finally done with covering up the incompetence of Barack Obama. Savor this amazing lead from Ron Fournier of National Journal, the former AP Washington bureau chief who still helps set conventional wisdom about national politics:

“Incompetence, deception, and lack of accountability doomed the Obamacare rollout. That’s old news.  What’s new? The nagging durability of the White House’s incompetence, deception, and lack of accountability.”

But that’s just the start of it. The national media also appear to be going after Obama’s generals in his dishonest crusade for the Affordable Care Act. David Gregory’s interrogation of Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco congresswoman who as House speaker shepherded Obamacare to passage in 2010, is amazing. Gregory actually tries to make her … apologize! Why? For spreading the “if you like your plan, you can keep it” propaganda.

Great stuff from “Meet the Press,” which is not a comment one hears often from a fan of limited, effective government.

This is from NBC’s official transcript of the Nov. 17 show; some key and fun parts are boldfaced:

DAVID GREGORY:

Are you and others going to go campaign on Obamacare in swing districts around this country? And if so, what’s the message going to be?

REP. NANCY PELOSI:

Well, the fact is I’ll get back to the Affordable Care Act, and the “affordable” is named that because it makes it affordable. And the experience in states where it is working, in Kentucky and California and the rest where we have our own state marketplace, it’s working very well.

And I have full confidence, as to my members, however they voted on this– this is political. They respond politically. But the fact is that, when this website is fixed, many of these people in these bad policies that are costing too much– now, what the president did, and it’s really important to mention this, what he did in his statement the other day was to allow people who have been in the plans since the enactment of the Affordable Care for there to be a delay in enforcement for those.

The others can always stay in. There’s nothing in the law that says they can’t stay in. But what he said was that the insurance companies must tell the policyholder what they are deprived of, that they’re not getting pre-existing conditions—

(OVERTALK)

DAVID GREGORY:

Right, but there are cancellation notices going out. There’s a million of them in California.

REP. NANCY PELOSI:

Yes. And what they have to do now is send another letter that says, “This is what this is going to mean to you in terms of you won’t get pre-existing conditions, this condition, and here are the other options that are available–“

DAVID GREGORY:

Now, wait a minute–

REP. NANCY PELOSI:

–“to you in the marketplace.”

DAVID GREGORY:

But the president has been apologetic, he’s been accountable for saying something that was not the case. You are speaker of the House. You in many ways were seen as an architect and a key ally on this. And this is what you said back in June of 2009 on MSNBC. Watch.

(BEGIN TAPE)

REP. NANCY PELOSI:

What we are talking about is affordable, quality, accessible health care for all Americans. It`s about choice. If you like what you have and you want to keep it, you have the choice to do that.

(END TAPE)

DAVID GREGORY:

Are you accountable for saying something that turned out not to be correct?

REP. NANCY PELOSI:

But it’s not that it’s not correct, it’s that if you want to keep it, it’s important for the insurance company to say to people, “This is what your plan does. It doesn’t prevent you from being discriminated against on the basis of preexisting conditions. Lifetime limits, annual limits in the–“

(OVERTALK)

DAVID GREGORY:

There’s a bottom line to this, which I think people understand, and the president has acknowledged, which is the government is deciding there have to be minimum standards, minimum requirements in any health care plan.

REP. NANCY PELOSI:

Yes.

DAVID GREGORY:

So if you have something and you like it, and it doesn’t meet what the government says you have to have, you cannot keep it.

REP. NANCY PELOSI:

If you have–

DAVID GREGORY:

And that’s not what you said here.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (TV CLIP):

If you had your plan before the enactment of the law in 2010. if you had your plan before. There is nothing in the law that says you have to– but, you know, again, we can go back and forth in this–

(OVERTALK)

DAVID GREGORY:

But this is important deal (?) because the grandfathering has changed. And the bottom line is the president acknowledged (it doesn’t seem like you’re acknowledging) that saying to people back in 2009, “Hey, this is going to be easy. If you like what you have, you can keep it–“

REP. NANCY PELOSI:

And you could.

DAVID GREGORY:

–“this is all about choice.”

REP. NANCY PELOSI:

You could if you had your plan until the enactment of the law in 2008. Grandfathering is for those before 2008. But let me say this, and I commend the president. He’s gracious and he’s taking responsibility. But that doesn’t mean that there was anything in the law that said if you like what you had before 2010 you couldn’t keep it.

DAVID GREGORY:

You ma–

REP. NANCY PELOSI:

But I think it’s really important to make that point. He took responsibility for the big picture, and that’s important for him to do because that’s what people see.

DAVID GREGORY:

But this is–

REP. NANCY PELOSI:

But you said earlier, “If the law says that you must–” it can’t. The law doesn’t say that. But, again, neither here nor there. How do we go forward?

DAVID GREGORY:

Yes, the bottom line is people are getting policies that are cancelled and that was not the representation that was made.

REP. NANCY PELOSI:

And the–

DAVID GREGORY:

And it was also foreseeable; it was part of the debate that this would actually happen.

REP. NANCY PELOSI:

Well, now, I would agree with you for the policies since 2010, but not for before. But the president has also said that the insurance companies, and many of them have been very responsible and some not so, the insurance company has to say to you, “You’re not getting the pre-existing conditions; you will have lifetime limits; you will have annual limits.” And, by the way, you have to tell people that they can go to the exchange, the marketplace, where they may qualify for a subsidy or they may just get a better–

DAVID GREGORY:

The big–

REP. NANCY PELOSI:

–price.

DAVID GREGORY:

–picture on this is that it doesn’t seem to be working right now. And you argued at the time, you said, “Look, there is a lot of controversy around this. It’s politically hot.” And that people don’t understand–

(OVERTALK)

DAVID GREGORY:

Right. And that people don’t understand the good things that are in it. But then you said this in March of 2010. Watch.

(BEGIN TAPE)

REP. NANCY PELOSI:

But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it away from the fog of the controversy.

(END TAPE)

DAVID GREGORY:

And hasn’t that idea, that you have to pass it before you know what’s in it, isn’t that really the problem, as you look back on it? That the– there was such a rush to get this done, no Republicans voting for it, and now there are unintended effects of this that were foreseen at the time that you couldn’t know the impact of it. And now this is coming home to roost.

REP. NANCY PELOSI:

No. What I was saying there is we are House and the Senate. We get a bill. We go to conference or we ping-pong it, and then you see what the final product is. However, I stand by what I said there. When people see what is in the bill, they will like it. And they will.

And so, while there’s a lot of hoop-di-doo and ado about what’s happening now– very appropriate. I’m not criticizing. I’m saying it took a great deal for us to pass this bill. I said if we go up to the gate and the gate is locked, we’ll unlock the gate. If we can’t do that, we’ll climb the fence. If the fence is too high, we’ll pole vault in. If we can’t do that, we’ll helicopter in, but we’ll get it done.

We had to pass the test of the courts, and we did. The first rollout in the first part of the first year of the implementation went very smoothly. The website did not work; that has caused problems complicating people transitioning from those policies to the other.

But, again, this is never thought to be easy. And the fact is, it doesn’t matter what we’re saying here: What matters? What happens at the kitchen table of the American people. And how they will have more affordability, more accessibility, better quality care, prevention, wellness, a healthier nation honoring the vows of our founders of life, a healthier life. Liberty to pursue their happiness, not be chained by a policy.

David Gregory! Who knew he had that in him.

What’s cool about this development is that it feeds on itself. Once the media turn on a president, it’s basically a contest as to see who can find the worst stuff about him. After Hurricane Katrina, there was very little sympathy for George W. Bush.

No, nobody died because of Obamacare. But Katrina was a natural phenomenon. Obamacare was a manmade disaster. Now that the media are witnessing the disaster unfold, they’ll be unsparing.

Or so I hope.