His comments about a 2009 strategy meeting about Obamacare’s Cadillac tax on high-value health plans at the White House have sparked considerable outcry about the administration intentionally hiding some parts of the law from the public.

“He is like, ‘Look, I can’t just do this,’” Gruber said Obama explained at the 2009 round-table meeting. “‘It is just not going to happen politically. The bill will not pass. How do we manage to get there through phases and other things?’” And we talked about it. And he was just very interested in that topic.”

Jonathan Gruber, the economist at the heart of a fresh debate about the Affordable Care Act, has had more than a dozen appointments to visit the White House since Democrats began drafting the health law in 2009, records show.

The visits included at least one group meeting with President Barack Obama , as well as appointments with senior administration officials who helped shape the 2010 law that expanded health insurance to millions of Americans. …

Former administration officials, similarly, described Mr. Gruber as having a limited role in crafting the law. “The notion he was somehow on the inside is just false,” said Ezekiel Emanuel, a former White House adviser on the law.

Throughout the rest of the segment, Bolling kept repeating the idea that Obama literally does not know who Gruber is. He even refers to another video that emerged this week, this time from 2006, in which Obama references Gruber by name as someone he has “stolen ideas from liberally.”

As more and more damning statements from Gruber emerge, no Democrat would deny that members of the Obama administration are actively trying to distance themselves from the man. But to suggest that President Obama claims not to even know who he is just isn’t accurate.

However, Bolling’s comment about Obama not being able to miss the controversy surrounding Gruber had he been watching Fox News is dead on. According to a TVEyes transcript search of the last seven days, the name “Gruber” was mentioned 20 times on CNN and 28 times on MSNBC. On Fox, Gruber’s name was uttered — often with contempt — a total of 336 times.

Three Vermont lawmakers are urging the administration of Gov. Peter Shumlin to sever ties with a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist who was shown on video saying it was the “stupidity of the American voter” that helped pass national health care reform.

In a letter dated Monday, Republican state Reps. Kurt Wright, Patti Komline and Heidi Scheuermann say the “arrogant and disrespectful” comments by Professor Jonathan Gruber will undermine Vermont’s health care reform efforts.

But the Governor is keeping him on the payroll. He says Gruber’s take on the American public and transparency should not affect his ability to tabulate single-payer’s potential impact for Vermont’s economy.

“We are going to continue to have him finish the job that he began, because he’s the one who is really digging into the numbers, he’s our calculator, he’s not doing policy for us, he’s not doing advice for us, he’s really our calculator,” said Shumlin.

Shumlin pledges to deliver a universal care plan by January, but Wright and fellow critics say that’s two years after its initial due date and suggest the missed deadline as evidence of Gruber’s influence.

It’s refreshing that “the most transparent administration in history,” as this administration fancies itself, should finally display candor about its signature act of social change. Inadvertently, of course.

But now we know what lay behind Obama’s smooth reassurances — the arrogance of an academic liberalism that rules in the name of a citizenry it mocks, disdains and deliberately, contemptuously deceives.