The Three-Pronged, Four-Hour Grilling of Jonathan Gruber

Before a citizen journalist named Rich Weinstein started looking into the public life of Jonathan Gruber, the MIT professor was best known to health care wonks. He knew his stuff. He was quotable. These were not widely shared characteristics during the epic debate over the Affordable Care Act.

After Weinstein started clipping videos from Gruber's many talks, the whole world got to know a different MIT professor. This Gruber–first and most importantly–seemed to be endorsing the Republican theory that the ACA was written to deny insurance subsidies to people in states that didn't set up their own exchanges. This Gruber chortled about how "the stupidity of the American voter" allowed the ACA to pass. This Gruber was some sort of accidental Bond villain, revealing the worst about the way Obamacare became law, and the way the elites think of the country.