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Gentle Readers,

Dr. J.’s been hideously busy at work lately, so your daily dose of pop-culture whimsy, biomedical news, educational theory, economic policy, tales of the Lil Resident and Lil Medstudent, and pictures of Lady J.  have been sporadic, at best.

You have his apologies, but you can blame Obamacare, as the ramifications of it have kept his nose to the grindstone.

Yesterday, the President tepidly non-apologized for lying to the American people about Obamacare causing millions of Americans to lose insurance plans that they like. He non-apologized for lies he told in multiple settings over dozen documented times (more like three dozen) in the process of passing and implementing Obamacare and in his campaign to be re-elected; ostensibly non-apologizing for lying about the lies and lying about lying about the lies.

According to the NBC News:

“I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me,” he told NBC News in an exclusive interview at the White House. 

“We’ve got to work hard to make sure that they know we hear them and we are going to do everything we can to deal with folks who find themselves in a tough position as a consequence of this.”

Dr. J. loves the legal elegance with which the President states that he is he’s sorry that people lost their health insurance because they listened to him. He never took ownership of the lies. He called them, instead assurances. Unlike assumptions, they only make an ‘ass out of you.’

Oh the humanity, oh the audacity of ‘rope-a-dope!’

Now the President never had Dr. J. fooled, , nor any of the rest of the Gormogons for that matter, especially The Czar who read PP-ACA in its entirety. Dr. J. read the Cliff’s Notes and was debriefed personally by a retired Senator, and found that sufficient for his needs.

While everyone says that it picks winners and losers in the way that it attempts to achieve its ends, the perverse incentives to do that make the unsustainable law even more unsustainable.

We are seeing this now with the lack of young people signing up for insurance, choosing to opt for the less expensive penalty. We are also seeing businesses adjusting employee hours and payrolls so as to avoid the added cost of the law.

But, now, even the Left™ is upset with the President as even they’re worn down because he lied, lied, lied, and lied some more. Because so many on the left are Kool-Aid drinking progressives,  they’ve bent over backwards to give him cover, saying he was ‘mistaken’ or ‘misspoke’ or that he said something else, such as that you could keep your insurance BEFORE the law was passed, or keep your insurance if it met the new requirements. But that cover is simply more lies to cover the lies.

But even they’ve lost faith.

Ron ‘Waterboy’ Fournier writes in the National Journal:

I’m sorry you campaigned for reelection on the famous false promise: “If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan. Period.” 

I’m sorry your aides debated whether to tell the full truth (that people could keep their insurance only if it hadn’t changed and if it met your standards) and decided instead to institutionalize the lie. 

I’m sorry that when Americans recognized the deception you tried to reinvent history: “What we said was you can keep it if it hasn’t changed since the law passed.” No, no, no, no, no—that’s not what you guys said. 

I’m sorry you didn’t trust Americans with the truth.

Sure he takes potshots at the Republicans and is mostly sorry because the lies have hamstrung the progressive slouch towards socialized medicine. But he’s chaffed over it.

The lesson from this is in the reaction of those upset on the left and what it tells us about the 21st century American liberal coalition (and it is a coalition).

There are three groups on the left that are upset with the President.

The first are his fellow travelers. The President’s inability to admit being wrong, and his willingness to lie so readily and so many times to accomplish his agenda, while initially useful in our ‘Bread-and-Circus’ society are now hurting the cause. They simply can’t provide cover anymore as all of the falsehoods used to achieve progressive ends are now becoming counterproductive despite the progressives in office and in the media being all-in. The internet, talk-radio, Fox News and other conservative media outlets have made it impossible to get away with lying.

Dr. J. predicts they will be the ones who will try to jettison Obama and Obamacare in order to argue more effectively for socialized medicine, also known as government run healthcare, or single payer which was the plan all along.

The second group on the left upset with the President are the less-Left™. The less left are folks who are to the right of the progressive movement, but still on the left. These folk have a sufficient sense of the sacred and sense of respect for authority that they just don’t feel good lying to win.

The third group on the left are the soft-Left™. These are the folks are also known as the selfish-Left. These are the folks who were for sticking it to the man, until they got stuck. The ones still getting freebies haven’t broke left. Ultimately, when you’ve been a taker for so long and you’re asked to be a giver, you’re naturally going to be chaffed.

Jonathan Haidt’s model of political thinking.

How did this happen?

President Obama is a true believer, a progressive ideologue. That is not intended to be a pejorative statement. Dr. J. is a conservative ideologue. Conservativism drives his belief system as progressivism drives the president’s. He believes what he believes and he is driven to achieve his goals. Now, as a progressive, his sense of the sacred is not the highest thing on his moral compass. Caring is. The driving force of progressivism is ‘caring’ in Haidt’s model of political thinking. The Progressives, you see, care so much about everyone, and they’re so much smarter than everyone, that they want to run your life for you, so that it will be better, than if you ran it yourself. For a progressive, because they care, the ends ultimately justify the means. Sanctity, loyalty, authority (of others) and liberty are not as important as caring is, and thusly as the cause is.

Conservatives, who are accused of not caring by the left care, care, but not as much as they want you to have the freedom to make it on your own and do it yourself. As a consequence, conservatives do not comfortably take an ‘ends justifies the means’ tack. When we do, it’s very disingenuous, uncomfortable and unlike our side. When one on our side does it, they are ultimately cast out into the wilderness.

The President has been doing everything within his legal means, and perhaps even stretching that in order to accomplish his goals. Dr. J. believes that Obama made promises he probably couldn’t keep because he truly believes that if he gets his way, things will be so much better that the promises would not apply to anyone. Even though the White House new that those promises couldn’t be kept, the plan was to press on. His intention was that Obamacare would be so good that everyone would leave their plans voluntarily and be happy, that it would all work out, because he and his team knew better.

Unfortunately, the whole exercise has been a reminder that one, or one hundred or five-hundred and thirty-six folks do not know better than the collective wisdom of 310,000,000.

* Dr. J. fully expects his friends Brad and Carrie to mock Obamacare for the CMA fans, we fly-over country folk appreciate the mocking. We didn’t expect the left to get as upset as they are.

Dr. J.