This weekend, in an article titled “Insurance Policies Not Worth Keeping,” the New York Times gave Obama cover for his “you can keep your insurance” claim, saying that he merely “misspoke,” and that besides, the cancelled policies were no good but people were just too dumb to see it, and thankfully Obama knows better than you and also isn’t he dreamy.

From the Times:

Congressional Republicans have stoked consumer fears and confusion with charges that the health care reform law is causing insurers to cancel existing policies and will force many people to pay substantially higher premiums next year for coverage they don’t want. That, they say, violates President Obama’s pledge that if you like the insurance you have, you can keep it. Mr. Obama clearly misspoke when he said that.

Ahh, doesn’t that feel better? It wasn’t a lie, it was a poor choice of words, and besides it is Republicans who are really mucking everything up, what with their questions and their directly quoting people all the time.

The article goes into detail about why we’re all better off being misspoken to anyway.

Indeed, in all the furor, people forget how terrible many of the soon-to-be-abandoned policies were. Some had deductibles as high as $10,000 or $25,000 and required large co-pays after that, and some didn’t cover hospital care.

It’s a furor! You silly Americans with your furors. You know, all this talk about furors reminds me of another New York Times article about misspeaking*:

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And it’s not just a furor, says the Times, it’s a totally uncalled for hooplah:

This overblown controversy has also obscured the crux of what health care reform is trying to do, which is to guarantee that everyone can buy insurance without being turned away or charged exorbitant rates for pre-existing conditions and that everyone can receive benefits that really protect them against financial or medical disaster, not illusory benefits that prove inadequate when a crisis strikes.

In other words, it’s not a lie, because shut up. The liberal media love to call things overblown or, as Jay Carney is so fond of saying, “just playing politics.” One might argue it was playing politics when the President made the “erroneous” claim in the first place, choosing to mislead people in order to garner their support. Telling lies for the sake of a convenient return is hardly a new practice, after all, which recalls another New York Times article:

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The tone and conclusions of the article paint a perfect picture: Although it wasn’t exactly accurate, it was merely a matter of the President trying to do what’s best for you, as you are unable to decide what is best for yourself. That this message of faith in the beneficence of government comes from the New York Times should be entirely unsurprising to anyone who pays even slight attention to the national media and their biases. It is those biases that made stories like John Edwards’ affair and Anthony Weiner’s sexting go unreported or under-reported for so long. It is that bias that lets [mc_name name=’Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL)’ chamber=’house’ mcid=’G000556′ ] get away with his bile-spewing while Republicans are excoriated for far lesser rhetoric. Obama can’t be a liar, he’s a Democrat. They come from the government and they’re here to help.

The New York Times in particular has a very long and storied history of covering for Democrats at the expense of honesty. (see also Ted Kennedy, Robert Byrd, [mc_name name=’Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’R000146′ ], Joe Biden.) In fact, they’ve been playing word games with the truth for quite some time:

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Note: Obviously these images are parodies. The New York Times would never have covered for Santa, it’s far too parochial a myth. But as long as I’m doing photoshops, why shouldn’t you? Feel free to submit yours in the comments below. Just remember to keep it clean.

*I bet you thought that furor joke was going somewhere else, didn’t you? OK fine, but only because you asked nicely. BAM! Hey, I kid because I love.