Via NRO, the exciting conclusion to ABC’s report this morning. It’s all worth watching but the outright mockery begins a little after 2:45. Simple question from Jon Karl: How can Obama claim that users can bypass the website and apply by phone in 25 minutes when O-Care’s phone operators are stuck in the same circle of 404 hell on Healthcare.gov as the rest of the country? You’re not enrolling when you call the hotline. No one’s calculating your subsidies or signing you up for a particular plan. All you’re doing is handing off your information to a government worker who’ll create an account for you on the system while we wait for The Most Technologically Savvy Administration Ever to staple and duct-tape Healthcare.gov into a semi-functioning hub. In which case, in what meaningful sense are you “bypassing” the website? All the important stuff is still in limbo until the website works. Carney’s reply, in so many words: Nobody has a problem with this except you, Jon Karl. Which, unwittingly, is a nice complement to the idea that nobody who’s had their insurance canceled really understands just how crappy their insurance was. If only we were smarter, we’d appreciate Obama more.

What Carney should have said is that applying by phone might spare you from having your personal information forwarded to a complete stranger. I wonder why he didn’t say that.