Refreshing pursuit of truth and accomplishment

Post-election, our MSM seem to be suffering withdrawal symptoms. They are feeding their dependency with stories that are juicy and do have some salience but which are basically ephemeral. Feminist outrage over astrophysicist scientist Matt Taylor (part of the team which landed a probe on a comet speeding along at 300,000 miles an hour, 3 billion miles away). Source of the outrage - he was wearing an Hawaiian shirt that offended their refined aesthetic sensibilities and caused them to wilt at the patriarchal presumption of science.

It has also been a week of Gruber. Jonathan Gruber that is. The MIT economist instrumental in designing and justifying both Romneycare in Massachusetts and Obamacare nationally. He has an ever growing portfolio of video interviews from the past few years in which he conversationally and without a trace of hedging confirms all the public fears about Obamacare (we hid things that were inconvenient, we disguised items in order to not have to call them taxes, we knew that people would lose coverage, we knew we were subsidizing the insurance companies, we knew it would cost more than we said, etc.). The Republicans have had a field day and the Democrats have been embarrassed to be caught out and have doubly embarrassed themselves by denying things which are demonstrably true.

Stepping back from the partisan contest, it is, I think, worth considering the man himself rather than the self-serving demon (as portrayed by the Republicans) or the incompetent non-entity (as portrayed by his Democratic sponsors).

Ann Althouse has a useful first pass at this.
From a 12-year-old NYT article: Jonathan Gruber's "most embarrassing moment in government." by David Leonhardt via Ann Althouse.

This is from an April 2002 article by David Leonhardt titled "How a Tax On Cigarettes Can Help The Taxed":

For years, economists would have said that actions speak louder than words. Whatever smokers say about quitting, they are rationally deciding that the pleasure they derive from cigarettes exceeds their cost.

Jonathan Gruber was one of these economists when he worked in the Treasury Department in the Clinton administration. Mr. Gruber, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, remembers telling other policy makers that economic theory says they should not increase cigarette taxes. People should be allowed to decide for themselves whether they want to smoke, he told his colleagues. Those who smoke may hurt themselves, but they will not drain the country's resources because so many of them will die before running up large Medicare bills.

Mr. Gruber called it his most embarrassing moment in government, and his discomfort with his own argument caused him to begin researching the issue when he returned to academia.....

So, there was an argument for taxation based on the costs that smokers impose on all of us because of the health problems caused by smoking, and Gruber undercut that argument with a truth. Smokers don't cost more overall because they die earlier. Why was that so embarrassing? Well, "embarrassing" is the reporter's word, not a quote from Gruber. Gruber is a very chatty guy.

I understand the outrage that Gruber went on to profit from his Obamacare work, particularly if you believe that the whole act will reduce choice (freedom), increase costs, reduce quality and innovation, and not do what it was supposed to do (cover people without insurance).

But let's be charitable. Gruber appears to be a naif, enamored with ideas and pursuit of truth. Similarly, the British astrophysicist Matt Taylor, a man so excited and confident about the pursuit of science that he had the Rosetta landing tattooed on his leg. We are all fallible but give me Gruber and Taylor any day over the narrow minded self-serving social cankers who criticize them. They are a breath of fresh air that ought to be celebrated. If only others were as interested in truth and accomplishment.