Why #Grubergate Can Never Die

There's no question that conservative media is driving the current Easter egg hunt that we've come to call #Grubergate. The story is proceeding along familiar react-quote lines, with Democrat after Democrat insisting that this Jonathan Gruber guy was as tangential to the writing of the Affordable Care Act as, say, Pete Best was tangential to writing "Hey Jude." The latest denier is President Obama himself, who argues that "the fact that an adviser who was never on our staff expressed an opinion that I completely disagree with in terms of the voters is not a reflection on the actual process that was run."

To most people, the fact that Gruber got paid enough in consulting fees to push him into the top tax bracket would suggest that he really did work on the law. This is why the story is so sticky for Democrats—to deny Gruber is to deny the history of how the Affordable Care Act was sold. And while Republicans are happy to do that, Democrats have no contingency plan to explain the law in a Gruber-less world.