Twitter offers a delightfully easy way for anyone to indulge in some schadenfreude. If someone makes an observation or prediction that’s ultimately proven to be embarrassingly wrong, that unfortunate tweeter may well discover that his adversaries have long memories. Call it the belated retweet.
Liberals relished it after the 2012 election, pulling up months-old tweets from conservatives who mocked polls and confidently predicted doom for President Obama.
But White House spokesman Jesse Lee might have set a new bar for the practice on Thursday, after the Obama administration announced that six million Americans have signed up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act.
Take a look at Lee’s Twitter feed and it becomes clear that the administration kept tabs on critics who seemed to revel in Obamacare’s low enrollment numbers back in the fall.
A particular focus of Lee’s taunts was a popular meme on the right during the health care law’s disastrous rollout. Ted Cruz and others wryly observed back in the doldrums of October and November that the number of Obamacare enrollees couldn’t even fill various athletic stadiums.
Seating capacity at Lucas Oil Stadium: 62,421. People who have been able to enroll in #Obamacare: Less than 50,000 pic.twitter.com/EnZW7JLYRc
— Todd Young (@ToddYoungIN) November 13, 2013
Total October “enrollees” in the Obamacare Exchanges?
106,185
Capacity of OSU’s stadium, The Horseshoe?
102,329 pic.twitter.com/DEVNecMhMW
— Brad Wenstrup (@RepBradWenstrup) November 13, 2013
Only 27k signed up for #Obamacare using the federal insurance website, not even enough to fill up Razorback stadium. pic.twitter.com/8AMyjEKlVc
— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) November 14, 2013
#Obamacare enrollees can fit inside Beaver Stadium. Comfortably. #WeAre
— Rep. Tom Marino (@RepTomMarino) November 13, 2013
106,185 people enrolled in Obamacare.
108,713 attended the 2010 NBA All-Star Game in Cowboys Stadium. #FullRepeal
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) November 13, 2013
Lee then twisted the knife a bit more and turned the gag back on conservatives:
Interesting trivia: total capacity of all NFL stadiums=about 2M. So enrollment now ~3x all NFL stadiums combined. http://t.co/b7JwrAnu02
— Jesse Lee (@jesseclee44) March 27, 2014
