During the House Oversight Committee hearing examining the White House narratives on the Iranian nuclear deal, Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) compared the administration’s deceptive approach to selling the unpopular deal with the deceptive approach it took to selling Obamacare. He began by asking the panel — comprised of Michael Rubin (AEI), Michael Doran (Hudson Inst.) and John Hannah (Foundation for Defense of Democracies) — if they had ever heard of Jonathan Gruber.
Jordan reminded them that Gruber was the “Obamacare architect” who had gained “some notoriety in the press” a few years ago and was subsequently called to testify before Congress to explain himself.
“He was deceptive,” Jordan noted. “He talked about the stupidity of the American voter” and how a “lack of transparency is a political advantage.”
“That’s a nice way of saying, ‘if you deceive people, you might get your way. It might help your case,'” Jordan explained. “So here is Jonathan Gruber — architect of Obamacare — talking about deception. Things like: if you like your plan you can keep it, if you like your doctor you can keep him, premiums will go down, website’s gonna work, website’s safe….everything turned out to be false.”
He continued, “and now we hear about another person in the Obama administration — Mr. Rhodes — and he is given the title, according to the The New York Times, of the ‘single most influential voice shaping American foreign policy.'”
“Wow, things are starting to sound familiar,” Jordan exclaimed. “He creates a false narrative as well. He talks about this echo chamber and deceiving the press. His derision for the press is kind of like Mr. Gruber’s derision for the American voter.” After all, Rhodes had said, “they literally know nothing.”
The purpose of Jordan’s Gruber/Rhodes comparison was to bring attention to the Obama administration’s history of deceiving the American people on important policy issues. Jordan went on to say that the Iranian nuke deception wasn’t the first time Rhodes had deceived the public on an important foreign policy issue.
“I think he did it on the Benghazi issue as well,” Jordan said. In the famous Benghazi talking points (which he noted were the catalyst for the formation of the Benghazi committee), Rhodes said, “it’s not a failure of policy, it’s rooted in a video.”
The use of deception to sell unpopular policy initiatives appears to be a pattern with the Obama administration and a pattern with Mr. Rhodes himself, Jordan concluded. “And then when he is asked to come testify, he doesn’t even have the courtesy to show up.”
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