Being a leftist of the Obama ilk, you have to assume that Congressman Keith Ellison thought he was doing President Obama a favor in offering his interpretation of the president's "if you like your plan, you can keep it" line, as well as his subsequent non-apology apology.
But on today's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Ellison wound up putting words in the president's mouth that quite literally added insult to injury. Ellison first falsely claimed that Pres. Obama had said "if you like your decent insurance, your insurance that works, then you can keep it." Obama of course never said any such thing. Moreover, according to Ellison, by his apology Obama meant "if you misunderstood what I was trying to say, I'm sorry." So the fault lies not with Obama for having blatantly misled the American people. No, it's those ignorant Americans—too dense to dig the real meaning of the great man's words—who are to blame. View the video after the jump.
Who did Ellison think he was fooling? How could this lefty—who earlier in the show managed to work in a plug for single-payer health insurance of the kind pre-President Obama advocated—think he could get away with compounding President Obama's, ahem, misrepresentation?
KEITH ELLISON: You know, I just want to say I think that everything that the president said and did was in pursuit to get all Americans health care, so, I think, even though he may have said, if you like your decent insurance, your insurance that works, then you can keep it, I think that people really get that. When -- he owned it. He said, look, if you misunderstood what I was trying to say, I'm sorry about that. I think that shows integrity.
Note: of course if President Obama had in fact initially said something along the lines of Ellison's interpretation, to the effect that if you like your insurance that meets Obamacare requirements, you can keep it, there would have been no misunderstanding. In that case, Ellison's description of the Obama apology as "if you misunderstood, I'm sorry," would make no sense, since no apology would be necessary. All this to say that perhaps, to be generous, Ellison, in saying that Obama "may have said," meant "if may have been a good thing if Obama had said." If so, Ellison presented it in the most obfuscated way possible.
Note Segundo: Ellison's "everything that the president said and did was in pursuit to get all Americans health care" smacks of "the ends justify the means." OK, Obama lied, but it was for a good cause.
