Former Congressman Barney Frank had "a July interview" with the Huffington Post. The liberal blog's Zach Carter put up a post about it on Friday, August 1 at 3:59 p.m.
How convenient, because Frank ripped President Obama and his administration, who he says "just lied to people" about whether they could keep their existing healthcare plans under the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. Naturally, despite the fact that most of those "if you like your plan-doctor-provider-drug regimen, you can keep them" promises were made before the law's passage, whoever interviewed Frank at HuffPo didn't follow up with the obvious question: "Despite the lies, why are you still comfortable with having voted for it?" Or if they did, they chose not to publish Frank's response. Excerpts follow the jump.
Readers are advised to put down their drinks before reading the final excerpted sentences below (bolds are mine):
Barney Frank 'Appalled' By Obama Administration: 'They Just Lied To People'
President Barack Obama made a major political mistake by lying about the details of his health care plan, according to former House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.).
"The rollout was so bad, and I was appalled -- I don't understand how the president could have sat there and not been checking on that on a weekly basis," Frank told HuffPost during a July interview. "But frankly, he should never have said as much as he did, that if you like your current health care plan, you can keep it. That wasn't true. And you shouldn't lie to people. And they just lied to people."
Obama has taken significant flak in conservative circles for claiming that his health care overhaul would allow all existing health care plans to continue, when, in fact, new consumer protection standards would require some people to sign up for more comprehensive insurance. The law provides government subsidies to help people of modest means pay for the more robust plans. Frank is a strong supporter of the law, and he has repeatedly defended Obama and his legislative agenda.
"He should have said, 'Look, in some cases the health care plans that you've got are really inadequate, and in your own interests, we're going to change them,'" Frank said. "But that's not what he said."
... "Any smart political adviser would have said, 'Don't lie to people, because you're gonna get caught up in it and it's gonna have this tsunami that you now have,'" Frank told HuffPost. "My political motto, very simple. I have always told the truth, and nothing but the truth. But I don't volunteer the whole truth in every situation."
I guess we're supposed to conclude from Carter's writeup that only "conservative circles" have given Obama "flak" for having, as Frank said, "just lied to people." Last time I checked, Frank was a Democrat, and Carter identified him as one. In other words, the use of "in conservative circles" is an attempt to minimize the fact that Americans of all ideologies and those who are ordinarily uninvolved were furious and remain furious at the President's breach of trust.
As to the statement that "Frank is a strong supporter of the law" — what this means, based on the over two dozen times shown below where Obama uttered his "you can keep your plan-doctor-provider-drug regimen" lie, is that Frank himself, despite his current complaint, is a strong supporter of the lie that was arguably the basis for its passage:
Of course, Frank's faux frankness isn't isn't news at the Associated Press, or the New York Times, or pretty much anywhere else in the establishment press, because it casts Dear Leader in a bad light (one exception is a short item at The Hill). But Carter and HuffPo did their part by holding the story, which has much less of a chance to be a major headline generator, until the fewest people possible were paying attention.
The guess here is that there is also audio or video of this interview, and that there isn't a chance in Hades that anyone outside HuffPost's halls will ever hear or see it.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
