The mainstream media are blacking out the story that Fox News has reported relentlessly.  Dr. Jonathan Gruber, the M.I. T. economics professor who was the chief designer of the Affordable Care Act, has been caught on video five times and counting.  He has boasted that the ObamaCare law was sold to a “stupid” American public as a deliberate lie.  It was composed in “torturous language” to obscure the fact that it would never deliver what President Obama and the law’s promoters promised. 

 You will recall that the Democrats rammed it through the Congress without a single Republican vote.  No one read the bill.  Nancy Pelosi famously explained that “We have to pass it to see what’s in it.”  As the reality has come slowly into view, the American people have reacted with fifty-six percent disapproval, according to the latest polls.

But the lie was not just in how ObamaCare was constructed, written, and sold.  The President knowingly lied when he promised repeatedly “If you like your insurance you can keep it; if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor.”  When Jonathan Gruber’s admissions surfaced, the lying continued.  Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader of the House of Representatives, protested that she didn’t know who he was and that he had no part in writing the bill.  But there is a video that reveals she did indeed know who he was and that Gruber was the very well-paid expert consultant for ObamaCare.

Then on November 16 at a press conference in Brisbane, Australia, the President declared that he had just found out about Gruber’s allegations.  He said he didn’t know who Jonathan Gruber was, that he had never met him; and, oh yes, that he was very angry about it.  We’ve heard that line more than a few times before.  But here is the fact:  Mr. Obama was in on the secret.  Right from the start.  Gruber was a consultant to Mr. Obama on health care way back in 2006 when Mr. Obama was a senator.  Gruber visited the White House fourteen times.  Obama and Gruber met together in the Oval Office more than once.  The record is there for all to see.  The conclusion?  Mr. Obama has knowingly and deliberately deceived us.  From the beginning.  And the lying continues unabated.

There is a verse in the Bible that seems to sum up the present situation: “Whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in the inner rooms shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.” (Luke 12:3)  That day has arrived, right on schedule!

God makes it plain that lying is one of the most grievous sins.  He placed it number nine in the Ten Commandments.  (Exodus 20:18)  And of heaven God says, “Nothing unclean and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it.” (Revelation 21:27)  In other words, God hates lying.  He condemns liars.  He connects lying with the architect of Evil.  Jesus said that the devil is “a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44) 

Why is lying so bad?  Why does God oppose liars so strongly?  It’s because he wants the best for human beings.  Lies destroy relationships between people, and the society those relationships enable.  To get along with others, to build and construct a social fabric, even to have another person you can love—it all requires trust.  When lies dominate a culture and blatant self-interest rules, trust perishes.  And everything that makes life happy withers.

People lie to conceal something or to deceive others in order that the liar may take something the other person would not willingly give had he known the truth.  When a president lies, it is even worse.  The president sets the moral tone for the country.  When a government lies to its people as a routine practice, citizens are forced to guard themselves against what the government may intend to do to them.  When lies prevail, one can almost bet that the government’s real aim is to achieve something that the people would not like.  Lying indicates that the government intends to impose control over the people and to steal away their liberties.  Lying is the tool of tyrants and dictators, not of honest men who truly desire the welfare of those under their care.

When a president is elected and sworn into office, he enters into a contract with the people.   They give him authority to lead the country, and he vows to work on their behalf for their benefit under the law as laid out in the Constitution. 

For seven years now, going back to the election campaign of 2008, the President and those who work for him have consistently lied to conceal what they intended to do.  When they were found out, they lied to escape accountability or avoid exposure in the scandals that have pock-marked this administration.  

It comes down to this:  By his ongoing pattern of lying this president has broken his contract with the people of America.  Consequently he has forfeited the legitimacy of his office.  And when the contract is broken, the people have the right, given them by God and clearly stated in the Declaration of Independence, to change their government.  That was what the midterm election of 2014 was about.  It was a vote for a new government, a government that will keep faith with the people under the rule of law.

If changes are not forthcoming, the people may justly decide to take matters into their own hands.  Let us pray that it will not come to that.

 Dr. Rick Perrin is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and Chairman of the Board of World Reformed Fellowship..  He writes a weekly blog called ReTHINK which may be accessed at www.rethinkingnews.wordpress.com. He may be contacted directly at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..