JAMES TARANTO: A Walk on the Wilde Side: ObamaCare demonstrates the value of cynicism and the cost of its absence.

One of Barack Obama’s most irritating rhetorical tropes is his oft-stated aversion to “cynicism.” It is vexing in substantial part because of its breathtaking and demagogic hypocrisy: Obama inveighs against cynicism in a cynical effort to manipulate the gullible, to make them feel good about their naiveté. That helps explain how he has maintained a base of support, albeit a shrinking one, as the disaster that is ObamaCare has unfolded. . . .

Faced with the ugly reality of ObamaCare so far, Talbot redoubles her efforts to deny it. She implicitly promises to keep redoubling those efforts for as long as she can hold out, whereupon, if “they” are still failing to fulfill her expectations, she will “feel like a chump.” We’re sure that prospect keeps Obama and his men up nights.

Here is a classic example of how the cynical exploit the gullible–by appealing to notions of “value” ungrounded in reality.

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