Asked about Gruber's comments from a 2013 University of Pennsylvania panel in which the economist said "a lack of transparency was a huge political advantage for the President..." in selling the bill to the American people, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said "the process associated with writing and passing and implementing the Affordable Care Act has been extraordinarily transparent." Story Continued Below 
 
 “I disagree vigorously with that assessment,” Earnest responded when asked about Gruber’s claim that Obamacare wouldn’t have passed if the administration was more transparent and voters more intelligent. (Also on POLITICO: New video surfaces of Obamacare architect) 
 
 He added, “It is Republicans who have been less than forthright and transparent about what their proposed changes to the Affordable Care Act would do in terms of the choices are available to middle class families.” 
 
 Earnest said the president “is proud of the transparent process that was undertaken to pass that bill into law.” 
 
 The response from the White House comes as a third video of Gruber criticizing the intelligence of American voters has surfaced. In previously posted but recently noticed speeches, Gruber discusses how those pushing the bill took part in an "exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter," taking advantage of voters' "stupidity" to create a law that would ultimately be good for them. Let’s review: Gruber, a highly paid administration consultant, said this at an academic conference a year ago: 
 
 “This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes…Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter, or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass,” Gruber said at the time, according to one of the videos that has recently come to light. In another video clip of a separate event, while talking about tax credits in the Affordable Care Act, he said, “American voters are too stupid to understand the difference.” 
 
 Gruber apologized for the comments during an appearance earlier this week on MSNBC’s “Ronan Farrow Daily”: 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Ted Cruz out on a limb on Obamacare repeal) 
 
 “I was speaking off the cuff, and I was basically speaking inappropriately, and I regret having made those comments.” 
 
 Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi dismissed Gruber’s role in Obamacare on Thursday, telling the press, “I don’t know who he is. He didn’t help write our bill.” 
 
 Many outlets were quick to point out that Pelosi cited Gruber in a “Health Insurance Reform Mythbuster” on her official website in 2009. As Congress voted on the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, in 2010, one of the bill's architects, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber , told a college audience that those pushing the legislation pitched it as a bill that would control spiraling health care costs even though most of the bill was focused on something else and there was no guarantee the bill would actually bend the cost curve. He said he didn’t want it widely known that “we gave poor people money.” Gruber then pivoted to charge that “the master strategy of the Republican Party” is “to confuse people enough about the law so that they don’t understand that the subsidies they’re getting is because of the law.” 
 
 That’s a separate debate, but it’s kind of ironic that a guy who pleaded guilty to intentional deception is now accusing the other side of spreading confusion.
– The name Jonathan Gruber should be a lot more familiar than it is right now, writes media critic Howard Kurtz. He's referring to the MIT professor and ObamaCare architect who suggested in a recently surfaced video from 2013 that the "stupidity of the American voter" helped get the law passed. First, the offending quote from Gruber: “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter, or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass." In a column at Fox News, Kurtz blasts mainstream media outlets, which usually salivate over a good hidden-video story, for ignoring this one. "This is utterly inexplicable, except as a matter of bias," he writes. "No matter what you think of ObamaCare, on what planet is this not news?" The story is getting harder to ignore, however: Gruber has conceded to MSNBC that he "spoke inappropriately," the White House today denounced the comments, and yet another video (the fourth, actually) has surfaced. In this one, Gruber is quoted as saying that President Obama "knew when he was running for president that quite frankly the American public doesn't actually care that much about the uninsured.” That's why even though the bill is "90% health insurance coverage and 10% about cost control, all you ever hear people talk about is cost control." This one is being reported by CNN, the very definition of mainstream media. Kurtz hopes the issue finally gets a "public debate," because the coverage so far has been "downright embarrassing." Read his full column.