Politico vs NBC News: A Tale of Two Grubers

December 10th, 2014 6:49 PM

It was the best of Grubers, it was the worst of Grubers. It was a Gruber unshaken before Congress, it was a Gruber shamed before Congress.

Okay, so which Jonathan Gruber appeared before Congress because it seems as if NBC Nightly News and Politico were describing two entirely different Grubers. First the NBC News Gruber in which reporter Kelly O'Donnell describes his public shaming:

 

Rarely do witnesses hauled before Congress make things worse... But today, M.I.T. economics professor and White House ObamaCare policy adviser Jonathan Gruber appeared to do just that during a four-hour public shaming.

Got that? Jonathan Gruber actually made himself appear worse than he was previously portrayed (in places other than NBC Nightly News) during a long public shaming before Congress. However, Politico had a complete different view of a Cool Hand Gruber who successfully dodged frustrated Congressional questioners starting with the subhead of this David Nather story:

He squirmed. He dodged. He apologized. But Republicans barely laid a glove on him.

Does one detect almost a note of admiration of Gruber by Nather in the following description?

But despite repeated attempts, they could never get Gruber to admit that he had actually written any of the law or made any important design decisions, even after Issa declared that Gruber’s statements were “the definition of a gaffe – that is when somebody accidentally tells the truth.”

Of course, there is another Politico view of a Schmoe Gruber as essentially an unimportant Obamacare non-architect as claimed by Page Winfield Cunningham who was discovered to have herself described him as an Obamacare architect.

Exit question: Will Politico later claim that there is a Zelig Gruber of multiple constantly changing personalities?