…on the Affordable Care Act and King v.Burwell, at his news conference. When President Obama was asked about the soon to be announced Supreme Court decision in King v. Burwell, he launched in an epic of unethical assertions and rhetorical games. I’ll highlight the unethical—not merely dishonest in some cases—statements and elaborate afterwards.

THE PRESIDENT: What I can tell state leaders is, is that under well-established precedent, there is no reason why the existing exchanges should be overturned through a court case. (1) It has been well documented that those who passed this legislation never intended for folks who were going through the federal exchange not to have their citizens get subsidies. (2)That’s not just the opinion of me; that’s not just the opinion of Democrats; that’s the opinion of the Republicans who worked on the legislation. The record makes it clear. (3)

And under well-established statutory interpretation, approaches that have been repeatedly employed — not just by liberal, Democratic judges, but by conservative judges like some on the current Supreme Court — you interpret a statute based on what the intent and meaning and the overall structure of the statute provides for. (4)

And so this should be an easy case. Frankly, it probably shouldn’t even have been taken up. (5)And since we’re going to get a ruling pretty quick, I think it’s important for us to go ahead and assume that the Supreme Court is going to do what most legal scholars who’ve looked at this would expect them to do. (6)

But, look, I’ve said before and I will repeat again: If, in fact, you have a contorted reading of the statute that says federal-run exchanges don’t provide subsidies for folks who are participating in those exchanges, then that throws off how that exchange operates. (7)It means that millions of people who are obtaining insurance currently with subsidies suddenly aren’t getting those subsidies; many of them can’t afford it; they pull out; and the assumptions that the insurance companies made when they priced their insurance suddenly gets thrown out the window. And it would be disruptive — not just, by the way, for folks in the exchanges, but for those insurance markets in those states, generally.

So it’s a bad idea. (8)It’s not something that should be done based on a twisted interpretation of four words in — as we were reminded repeatedly — a couple-thousand-page piece of legislation. (9)

What’s more, the thing is working. (10)I mean, part of what’s bizarre about this whole thing is we haven’t had a lot of conversation about the horrors of Obamacare because none of them come to pass. (11)You got 16 million people who’ve gotten health insurance. The overwhelming majority of them are satisfied with the health insurance. It hasn’t had an adverse effect on people who already had health insurance. (12)The only effect it’s had on people who already had health insurance is they now have an assurance that they won’t be prevented from getting health insurance if they’ve got a preexisting condition, (13)and they get additional protections with the health insurance that they do have.

The costs have come in substantially lower than even our estimates about how much it would cost. Health care inflation overall has continued to be at some of the lowest levels in 50 years. (14)None of the predictions about how this wouldn’t work have come to pass.(15)

And so I’m — A, I’m optimistic that the Supreme Court will play it straight when it comes to the interpretation. (16)And, B, I should mention that if it didn’t, Congress could fix this whole thing with a one-sentence provision. (17)

Wow, that’s even worse that I thought. Have there been more dishonest, deceptive, irresponsible statements by a President of the United States? Maybe. I don’t see how there could have been one that was much worse, though.

I’ll try to be brief, or else this will be a book. The numbers correspond to the bolded sections above…

(1) Intentionally misleading and untrue: there’s a very good reason, if the Court decides that it applies. The reason would be that legislation passed by Congress that doesn’t work should be fixed by Congress, as the Constitution directs, not by executive fiat, just because that would make life easier for the President. Only a leader who does not view the Constitution as important would say such a thing.

(2) The folks who “passed” the law didn’t read it. The belief that legislation in a major democracy can consist of good wishes and nice intentions without the law itself actually embodying and executing those intentions and wishes in easily understandable language is irresponsible and absurd. In legislative drafting, as in law generally, the words matter.

(3) A lie: the record isn’t clear at all. Jonathan Gruber, who recent documentation shows was indeed as integral to the development of the Affordable Care Act as Democrats have denied that he was, was recorded explaining that the language in the law which stated that only state exchanges could provide subsidies was intentional, and designed to force states to set the exchanges up.

(4.) See here, here, and here, just as a start. It isn’t that simple, and in this case, where the intent is ambiguous, it isn’t simple at all. Here’s a quote from one of the scholarly papers, this one by Prof Ron Rotunda, who I know a bit. Smart guy, Ron:

If the Court allows administrators carte blanche to change the very words of a statute, we will have come a long way towards governance by bureaucrats. Over the years, Congress has delegated many of its powers, but it has never delegated the power to raise taxes or spend tax subsidies in ways that no statute authorizes.

For example, the ACA [ ] provides that territories of the United States (e.g., Guam) are “States,” for purposes of this law. Section 1323 provides [ ] that if a “territory” creates an Exchange, it “shall be treated as a State” under this law. Congress knew how to define “state” to include more than “states.” It did that when it defined “territory” as “State.” It also says that the District of Columbia is a “State” for subsidy purposes. A section provides, “In this title, the term ‘State’ means each of the 50 States and the District of Columbia.” However, no section of the law defines “State” to include the Federal Government. An earlier version of the bill — one that Congress did not enact — provided that “any references in this subtitle to [any] Health Insurance Exchange…shall be deemed a reference to the State-based Health Insurance Exchange.” That would treat Federal Exchanges the same as State Exchanges. Congress did not enact that version.

When lawyers say that a problem is simple and a proper result is obvious, it often means that they don’t have as  strong an argument as they would like everyone to believe.

(5.) Ethics foul. That’s not Obama’s opinion to announce in public: the Supreme Court justices don’t opine on whether its time for boots for him to order on the ground to battle ISIS. This is a leadership ethics breach particular to Obama. The Supreme Court’s standing with the public has declined  during Obama’s administration to the lowest point in history, and his refusal to treat the Court with respect and deference is a prime reason.

(6.) See (4) above. Obama is falsely claiming a scholarly consensus that doesn’t exist.

(7.) There is nothing “contorted” about it, as the example in (4) points out.

(8.)  It’s a bad idea to make certain that Congress reads laws, doesn’t pass laws so long and convoluted that members can’t read them, causing  hidden or perverse provisions to slip through, thus either making the law impractical or forcing a violation of the Constitution and rule of law by amending it by fiat? To the contrary, it’s a bad idea to allow this to continue without sending the message that sloppy, unprofessional, lazy, irresponsible lawmaking has consequences.

(9.) Oh, brother. Again, a) reading the words to mean what they mean is not “twisted,” and b) who allowed the law to be so long? What’s the argument, that the longer and more impenetrable a law is, the more that poor and ambiguous drafting should be tolerated and ignored? This is an insulting argument designed to appeal to the dim-witted. It makes no sense, and is intellectually dishonest.

(10.) Yet.

(11.)  It is unbelievable that Obama would dare to say this, after lying about how anyone who wanted to keep their plan and doctor could.  Well, maybe not so unbelievable, come to think of it.

(12.) and (13.) This too. Having to change plans and doctors, and pay more in the bargain is certainly an “effect,” and not a good one.

(14)  As has even been pointed out by liberal “fact-checkers,” the causality is unclear, and costs are projected to start rising again. This statement is misleading.

(15,) A false blanket statement of certainty that is still far from certain. As usual for this administration, Orwellian denial is the policy.

(16.)  “Play it straight” is despicable, suggesting to the public that there are only two alternatives for the Court: deciding Obama’s way, or making a corrupt ruling based on partisan bias. This is nothing less than an ad hominem attack on the integrity of the Justices, terribly damaging to public respect for the process, and the high water mark of a shameless Machiavellian.

(17.)  And Congress fixing it is the way the Constitutions says that it should be fixed. Nonetheless, this is blame-shifting. If the clause is interpreted to mean that only state exchanges can provide health insurance subsidies and chaos results, the blame should be squarely on the party that passed a flawed bill without due care in the first place.

17 unethical statements in a single response, while barely pausing to take a breath. Impressive!

3, 5, 11 and 16 are the worst of the worst.

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Sources: Washington Post 1,2, 3, 4