Team Obama scurrying to deny Gruber had any input whatsoever to Obamacare

As Team Obama scurries to try to distance their leader from the contemptuous statements by the amazing sack of Gruber, the defense is shaping up:  1) the president never knew Gruber before the man's statements hit the internet; 2) Gruber "never worked on our staff;" and 3) he had nothing to do with the bill's provisions or wording.

Roll tape from 2006:



Asked about the discrepancy between his comments on the tape--crediting Gruber--and his current position, the president said "You mean the guy in the internet clips is JON Gruber?  See, in the articles about the current internet flap he's always called 'Jonathan,' but he was introduced to me as 'Jon', so that's why I never made the connection.  I mean, it's such a common name that I naturally assumed it wasn't the same guy."

Just kidding.

Now about the claim that Gruber "never worked on our staff:"  The press secretary said "That's absolutely true--the White House itself never cut a check to Gruber.  And of course Obama had absolutely no way of knowing if some small, hidden government agency might have been paying Gruber.  I mean, how can anyone know what some small, distant, unsupervised bureau in some distant, unknown, invisible corner of the country is doing with the president's money?"

"Finally, we can tell you this Gruber person--who the president didn't know and didn't pay--had nothing whatsoever to do with the language of the bill.  And as for claims by evil Republicans that until recently there was a press release on barackobama.com quoting some guy allegedly named 'Gruber' saying he had a great deal to do with the bill since he was the architect of Romneycare in Massachusetts, and that the ACA is just a larger verson of that state's health care system, we can tell you the website doesn't not have such a post, and as far as we know never did.  And you can see for yourself that it's not there.  Because we're the most transparent administration in history, that's why!

And you can't prove it was ever there.  Stupid Rethuglicans!"

Just kidding.  There's a thing called the "Wayback machine" that saves pages from the internet, so if you remove something the proof remains.  And the press release was on barackobama.com until "the most transparent administration in history" pulled it a few days ago.  (At the link, search for "Gruber")  Gee, wonder why they would have done that?

Well, we asked 'em.  And they said it "mysteriously vanished" and they have no idea why.  It's a mystery.  They suggested right-wing hackers may have been responsible.

Yeh, Tea-Party hackers!  Dat's da ticket!