MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, a leading architect of President Obama’s healthcare law, is under fire for recently surfaced comments in which he conceded that to pass Obamacare, supporters relied on “the stupidity of the American voter” to hide its actual effects.

My colleague Tim Carney has already written about how the comments are just the latest reminder of how the law was built on a foundation of lies. But there is a broader message in all of this — that Gruber’s comments get to the heart of what’s wrong with liberalism.