Tag: Jonathan Gruber

Jan 09 2010

Appeal to authority

So yesterday I wrote what I still consider to be an entirely uncontroversial post unless you happen to be a graduate of a particular college that I pointed out as being third rate and mediocre.

I’ll say at the start what I’m sincerely disappointed in is that nobody remarked on my clever turn of phrase substituting “credible course” for “credible source”, but as with most of my jokes the important part is that they amuse me.

But some also missed my more populist point which I’ll repeat because of new news.

The new news is this-

Jonathan Gruber, professor at MIT, far from being an independent expert on Health Insurance economics, is simply a well paid shill for Rahm Emanuel and the Obama Administration.

For those not so proud of their ignorance that they refuse to click links see-

This is exactly the same behavior we saw from the Bush Administration with Armstrong Williams and Military "Experts".

Late Night: Color Me Gruber

By: Gregg Levine Friday January 8, 2010 8:02 pm

Remember, back in November, when everyone inside the Beltway was all a-twitter (in both senses of the phrase) about how Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, was making practically every White House staffer read an Atlantic article by Ron Brownstein? That piece, touting what FDL’s own Jon Walker called “free market economagic,” relied heavily on the work of Jonathan Gruber-then billed as “a leading health economist at MIT,” now well-understood to be a super-remunerated contractor in the employ of several parts of the Obama Administration.

…

It’s hinky on its face, for sure, but what really gets me is the broad similarities this has to the way the Bush Administration worked the press during the last decade. Cheney would authorize a leak about a possible terror plot, a link to an alleged state-sponsor of terrorism, the use for some assortment of aluminum tubes, or the provenance of some copper casings, and then you would see these items reported in all the right, respectable places. Then, Dick Cheney, or Condi Rice, or any of host of other Bush White House proxies would go on the Sunday shows and warn us that the threats had to be real-after all, it was right there in the New York Times and/or Washington Post.

Judy Miller anyone?  Bueller?

Hopey changiness.

Now I’ll not call MIT third rate but I will repeat this point-

“Most professors I’ve met are self centered ignorant assholes even about their own subject and unworthy of accreditation by any measure.”

And my populist message is this-

People lie all the time.  Even “Experts”.  Why are you fucking falling for the fallacy of appeal to authority?

Time to wake up and smell the glove.