One of the most consistent topics we've explored on this blog is "juking the stats," whether that's being done to game the law blog rankings, or law school admissions, or law school rankings.
Without taking sides on the debates about the Affordable Care Act, one fact struck me about how the bill was drafted and passed. An MIT professor was able to model and simulate the CBO's scoring program and apparently the draft ACA was tweaked and tweaked until it would force the CBO to draw a politically favorable conclusion about the bill, regardless of the substantive realities. Details at the Washington Post.
Should we be disappointed or should we resign ourselves to the way that sausage and omelettes are made? (For our younger readers, if we have any, is this a case of "don't hate the player; hate the game"?)