Thursday, January 7, 2010

Obama and the Broken Promise



This clip shows a smiling Pelosi comment on the growing furor over Obama's abandoning his multiple pledges for an open and transparent government, including CSPAN coverage of the working on Health Care Reform.
Pelosi emerged from a meeting with her leadership team and committee chairs in the Capitol to face an aggressive throng of reporters who immediately hit her with C-SPAN’s request that she permit closed-door final talks on the bill to be televised. A reporter reminded the San Francisco Democrat that in 2008, then-candidate Obama opined that all such negotiations be open to C-SPAN cameras. “There are a number of things he was for on the campaign trail,” quipped Pelosi, who has no intention of making the deliberations public.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31180.html#ixzz0bzYY7MRx

Meanwhile, C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb accused President Obama of using his network as a "political football" during the presidential campaign, citing the president's broken pledge to televise health care reform negotiations on the nonpartisan channel which is devoted to covering Washington.  Lamb, speaking on liberal host Bill Press' radio show Wednesday, said Obama had "no right" to assume C-SPAN would cover the talks in the first place. ...He said the "only time" the network has been allowed to cover the White House's involvement in the talks was a "one-hour" event in the East Room which he described as a "show-horse" affair.  ..."We obviously would cover these negotiations. ... It's just a gut reaction that if we pay for something, and it's the public's business, we ought to be able to see how it's done," he added.
The comments were the latest shot in the semi-feud between C-SPAN and Democrats in control of the health care talks.  Lamb wrote to leaders in the House and Senate Dec. 30 urging them to open "all important negotiations, including any conference committee meetings," to televised coverage on his network.

 "The C-SPAN networks will commit the necessary resources to covering all of the sessions LIVE and in their entirety," he wrote.  The request generated tremendous attention, since Obama, as a candidate, repeatedly said he would televise the talks on C-SPAN but has not followed through since then.

Oh, the shock of it all...a politician of hope and change actually  not changing much of how business is done...
at

7 comments:

  1. Perfectly HumanJanuary 7, 2010 at 8:57 PM

    I voted for this guy in the spirit of voting for the lesser of the available evils so I'm not terribly suprised...just predictably bummed out.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kimberly WilsonJanuary 8, 2010 at 5:49 AM

    Oh, I guess you were not informed that there were more than two people running for the Presidential Office. Perhaps if everyone that had voted for the lesser of the "two" evils had voted independent, perhaps we would be moving in an entirely different direction that the same old same old.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Kimberly WilsonJanuary 8, 2010 at 5:53 AM

    Why would anyone that bore witness to the last term of King George II, in which the democrats controlled Congress, would assume that a democrat president would actually do anything to overturn what King George II did? The democrats handed King George II everything he wanted, and they are now letting the Glorious Leader do the same. It is very evident that there is little difference between republicans and democrats, they are just opposite sides of the same coin, the two party system is really just one. Perhaps the people will start to wake up now and see the truth; although it is probably too late now.

    ReplyDelete
  4. John QuestJanuary 8, 2010 at 9:41 AM

    They lie so easily!
    Of all the people who participated in the "town hall meetings" that were actually held, there was a huge message of "no we don't want this."
    She says that there has never been a more open process. I find that very hard to believe. It would only take the finding of one openly debated bill to destroy this difinitive statement. There are no doubt many examples.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Perfectly HumanJanuary 8, 2010 at 2:13 PM

    Maybe...maybe not.

    ReplyDelete
  6. canice mJanuary 9, 2010 at 8:15 AM

    I didnt vote for either McCain or Obama...none the less i am still, like Perfectly Human, not surprised by this treachery...but really tired of it...REALLY tired...

    ReplyDelete
  7. canice mJanuary 9, 2010 at 8:21 AM

    As much as i want to disagree with what you say, I find the evidence really supports your arguement. Working on a degree in political science (what an oxymoron) I found that the concept of multiple party system is not really practiced in the USA. When I was in Germany, during oneof their elections, there were I think 7 credible parties running for various offices. i know I am a minority here, but sometimes i thing the USA would be better governed by a mutilpe party parilmentary style government, where the president is elected through a consenus process of the elected representatives, but we would probably muck that up as well...

    ReplyDelete