The White House is placing a giant collective bet on Gruber’s “assumptions” to justify key portions of the Senate bill, which they allowed people to believe was independent verification. Now that we know that Gruber’s work was not that of an independent analyst but rather work performed as a contractor to the White House and paid for by taxpayers, it should be made publicly available so others can judge its merits.

Krugman owes everyone an explanation as to why he thinks it’s okay to smear someone fairly investigating a legitimate controversy in defense of a friend who mislead people for months, who stood on the sidelines mutely while the White House promoted his work as objective verification of their own policies in a self-generated validation loop.

And he owes Marcy Wheeler an apology.

I’ve already said that I think allowing states to “opt-out” of a public option is an immoral and unnecessary political compromise, an attempt to let Democrats off the very hook that so many have worked so hard to get them on.  But I cannot say it as well as Rikyrah does.

The special interests, all aligned against the urgent needs of the American people, are spending $1.4 million a day so that they will prevail and we won’t.