Jonathan Gruber is a healthcare economist and supporter of the current healthcare reform legislation. But because he received a grant from HHS, Marcy Wheeler thinks he's more or less a shill for the Obama White House. Paul Krugman explains why this is ridiculous, and ends with a characteristically tough warning for the kill-the-bill set:
What the folks at Firedoglake should ask themselves is this: do you really want to become just like the right-wingers with their endless supply of fake scandals?
We should convene a meeting with Grover Norquist and Dick Armey to counter-attack this accusation from Krugman, no?
UPDATE: An alert from FDL about Gruber arrived in my inbox today. This line caught my attention:
But as Firedoglake revealed on Friday, the Obama Administration has failed to disclose that it paid the same economist more than $780,000.
This is very misleading and disingenuous. The Obama administration didn't pay Gruber a damn thing. It was HHS -- and it was a grant!