When something important is falling apart — say a relationship or a business idea — it's not always easy to keep up appearances. After all, one still has the occasional private conversation with close friends and confidants where the truth gets acknowledged, even when one doesn't want the rest of the public to know about it.
Meet the Press host David Gregory appears to have forgotten for the briefest moment that he was not in private but in the public eye this morning. As blogger Ann Althouse noted (HT Instapundit; MTP transcript here), Gregory had the following to say at the conclusion of a segment whose purpose was supposedly "to get beyond some of these political arguments over Obamacare here in Washington" by interviewing "two top leaders in the medical field from the hospitals mentioned by the president to give us their insights on the future of Obamacare" (bolds is mine):
GREGORY: Thank you both for helping us get beyond the debates about Obamacare. I’d love to have you back and as this thing un-- unravels over the course of the year-- not unravels in a bad way-- but continues to roll out over the course of this year…
A visit to dictionary.com indicates that there really isn't a good way for something like a government policy or program to unravel (the informal meaning is "to take apart; undo; destroy (a plan, agreement, or arrangement"). The fallback definition ("to free from complication or difficulty; make plain or clear; solve: to unravel a situation; to unravel a mystery") is still an admission that the item under discussion is in far from perfect condition.
One can easily imagine Gregory and a large portion of the establishment press being in quiet despair over the nightmare Obamacare has become. Surely discussions with colleagues occasionally include observations along the lines of how the whole "thing" is unraveling, or imploding, or falling apart.
It's okay, David. Those of us who who have been following the news closely know Obamacare is unraveling. Thanks for admitting it on national TV to a somewhat more general audience— for once.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
