You Know, Media, You Don't Have to Always Give the Administration The Benefit of the Doubt

Today on NRO ANDREW C. McCARTHY: The new e-mail revelations and the Obama administration's lies. Obama's 'Blame the Video' Fraud Started in Cairo, Not Benghazi. VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Affirmative action is a dated doctrine for modern America. The End of Affirmative Action. KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON: The mistake our policymakers always stumble into is mistaking the map for the territory. The Mapmakers' Dilemma. TOM ROGAN: The teachers' union in Philadelphia takes on the superintendent of schools — and their students. A Tale of One and Many Cities. SLIDESHOW: NASA Moon Shots. Morning Jolt . . . with Jim Geraghty May 1, 2014 You Know, Media, You Don't Have to Always Give the Administration The Benefit of the Doubt Success! 2.45 Million Obamacare Enrollees Paid Their Premiums By April 15. Remember the Obama administration's much-touted statistic that 8.1 million Americans had signed up for Obamacare? Yeah, about that… As of April 15, 2014, insurers informed the committee that only 2.45 million had paid their first month's premium for coverage obtained through the federally facilitated marketplace. If you have a statistic that seems artificially inflated for more than four weeks, consult your doctor immediately. When it comes to Obamacare, always check the fine print: Just 67 percent of Americans who purchased insurance through federal-facility ObamaCare exchanges have paid their premiums, according to information insurers participating in the program gave to Congress. The information was compiled by the GOP-led House Committee on Energy and Commerce, as Americans wait to learn enrollment details from the Obama administration, two weeks after the April 15 enrollment deadline.   The age group with lowest percent of enrollees who have paid their first month's premium is the 65-and-older group. Just one percent of those paid, according to information supplied by all 160 insurance companies in the federally-facilitated ObamaCare exchanges. Texas had the lowest percentage of payers by state, at 42 percent, in the committee's nationwide breakdown of the numbers, as of April 15. President Obama, in the days following the deadline, declared his signature health care law a success, saying in a press conference that more than eight million people enrolled in the first six months, exceeding the goal of seven million. But the president has yet to announce several key figures, including the age breakdown for enrollees and how many have paid, which would likely provide a more accurate picture of the 2010 law's success. The age group breakdown is considered important because the success of ObamaCare is based on having a high percentage of young Americans signed up to cover older enrollees, who typically need more health care. Only 25 percent of that key demographic, 18-to-34-year-olds, has so far paid, according to the data supplies by the committee. In the president's home state of Illinois, nearly half, 48 percent, hadn't paid as of April 15. This is the moment when we realize taxpayers spent $684 million to promote "Get Covered!" and not one dime for "Pay Your Bills!" Vox attempted to rush to the rescue of the administration, but noted: The data contradicts previous statements from the Obama administration: HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said insurance companies told her that about 80 to 90 percent of people initially signing up for Obamacare paid their premiums. And we know the woman who kept the president in the dark about the status of the Obamacare exchange site until after launch day wouldn't lie, right? Also, notice Vox's wording: "The committee claimed it obtained the data through direct correspondences with every insurance provider on Obamacare's federal exchange." You think all those insurers withheld all the good data? Vox and the administration kept emphasizing that these figures don't include all the procrastinators who signed up in the final weeks. Okay, but why would those folks be so much more diligent about paying their bills? If they're procrastinators, isn't there a good chance they'll be a little lax about sending out the check to pay the premiums on time? Go Home, Wall Street, You're Drunk. Man, the economy stinks. U.S. growth nearly stalled in the first three months of the year, fresh evidence that the economic expansion that began almost five years ago remains the weakest in modern history. Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced across the economy, grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 0.1% in the first quarter, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. It marked the second-worst quarterly performance since the recession ended in mid-2009. Imagine what an awful number like that will do to the markets! Oh, wait a minute… The Dow closed at a record high Wednesday, its first of the year, and it is back to where it started in 2014. The Dow was up 0.8 percent in April, after rising 8 points Wednesday to 16,580. But the Nasdaq and small cap Russell 2000 finished the month with losses. I give up, Wall Street. We get bad news, and you pop the champagne. Is it all automated computers over there now? Do any humans trade stocks anymore? You Know, Media, You Don't Have to Always Give the Administration The Benefit of the Doubt On Special Report last night, George Will asked whether the American people were "systematically misled" about the events in Benghazi. It's a good term, as it points out that this is more than just confusion from the fog of war or one or two individuals using the wrong word. We now know from the e-mail chain that as time went on, the administration's explanation of what happened grew less accurate, not more accurate. With the e-mail, we have a speechwriter, three days after the attack, making the spin explicit -- "rooted in a video, not a broader failure of policy." In other words, don't blame us. Now we know that they denied Ambassador Stephens' requests for more security. Now we know that despite having NATO and all of our allies in the region, we had no military assets anywhere in southern Europe that could launch a rescue mission to Libya's northern coast. This sure as heck was a failure of policy. And with the president having just declared that al-Qaeda was on the run at the Charlotte convention, the administration needed another explanation, so they latched onto the video. The reason the press needs to continue digging here is that we know we have an administration that lies. They lied when they said you could keep your plan. They lied about the NSA. They lied about the IRS. They lied about the sequester. Why is anybody giving them the benefit of the doubt on why they told the public things that weren't true about Benghazi? The Extent of Obama's Failure Begins to Dawn Upon His Fans Last night on Greta, we briefly touched on Maureen Dowd's column; her faith in Obama is waning rapidly: Stop whining, Mr. President. And stop whiffing… You simply proclaim what you believe as though you know it to be absolutely true, hoping we recognize the truth of it, and, if we don't, then we've disappointed you again… It doesn't feel like leadership. It doesn't feel like you're in command of your world. How can we accept these reduced expectations and truculent passivity from the man who offered himself up as the moral beacon of the world, even before he was elected? The reason it doesn't feel like Obama's in command of his world is because he isn't. There's no way to argue he's offered any effective check on Putin's aggression. The Syrian "red line" promise haunts him; the whole world now knows you can use chemical weapons if you offer just enough plausible deniability and if getting involved appears too messy to Americans. The economy stinks, and it's starting to show up in the polls. The rollout of Obamacare was a disaster, and as we see above, even the much-touted successes are illusory. He can't get anything through Congress. His party looks like it's going to get spanked in the midterms. To the extent he does anything anymore, he runs around the country touting these poll-tested wedge issues — the minimum wage, the much-refuted 77 cents statistic — trying to save his party while the world burns. He doesn't have any close relationships with anyone on Capitol Hill, certainly not among Republicans, and most Democrats feel like they don't really know him. His relationships with foreign leaders are cordial at best — Merkel and Cameron -- and when he encounters a Putin or an Assad he seems utterly baffled by their thinking. He's just there. Whether he knows it or not, he's done. The media's attention is shifting to Hillary Clinton and the 2016 Republican options. ADDENDA: The lovely Bethany Mandel grabbed this screen shot of my appearance on Greta Van Susteren's show last night. A fitting "oh, please" expression. To read more, visit www.nationalreview.com Why not forward this to a friend? Encourage them to sign up for NR's great free newsletters here. Save 75%... Subscribe to National Review magazine today and get 75% off the newsstand price. Click here for the print edition or here for the digital. National Review also makes a great gift! Click here to send a full-year of NR Digital or here to send the print edition to family, friends, and fellow conservatives. Follow Tweet NR Podcasts Send National Review, Inc. 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