Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Pie crust promise
Easily made, easily broken.
Of course, the president has no power to make health care "negotiations" within the Congress transparent. Congress is an equal branch of government and as such guards its prerogatives closely. The president has no more authority to impose transparency on Congress than on the federal judiciary. If the president cannot demand that the Justices televise their hearings or deliberations, then how can he promise that "negotiations" inside Congress "will be on C-Span"? The whole idea is asinine, and invites the question: How was it that journalists (at least those who took American history in high school) did not question about the ridiculous C-Span promise back during the campaign?
Oh, wait, that would have required them to ask the Obama campaign actual questions.
CWCID: Glenn Reynolds.
16 Comments:
By 
Brian Schmidt, at
Thu Jan 07, 01:08:00 AM:
The health care bill process has been very transparent compared to the Clinton's process or compared to Cheney's energy program.
The Breitbart video failed halfway for me, but I didn't hear a clip where Obama promised that every single aspect of critical negotiations would be in public.
I'd give Obama 90% on compliance with the promise. Gibbs is totally evading the question, though.
By 
Georg Felis, at
Thu Jan 07, 01:17:00 AM:
Easy. "To Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, I say this. Unless you conduct all negotiations about the making of the compromise health care bill in public, under the cameras of C-Span, I will veto *whatever* bill is the result."
And of course, they wouldn't. And he would either have to veto the bill (not likely) or look like a push-over.
By , at
Thu Jan 07, 10:10:00 AM:
" Oh, wait, that would have required them to ask the Obama campaign actual questions. " You implicitly presume that they cared then, or are concerned now. Why ?
By Swami, at
Thu Jan 07, 10:19:00 AM:
Oh please.
Obama has no authority to dictate management decisions to corporations, either, and THAT doesn't seem to stop him.
By Brian Schmidt, at
Thu Jan 07, 10:59:00 AM:
GeorgeF: I'd say your quote proves your point, except I can't find it anywhere. Can you give a link?
By davod, at
Thu Jan 07, 10:59:00 AM:
"The health care bill process has been very transparent compared to the Clinton's process or compared to Cheney's energy program."
You must have been following a different process to the one I have been watching. Obama pushed to have the bill passed by the end of July. If there had not been an uproar at the time the bill would have been passed as quickly, and with as little scrutiny, as the Stimulus Package. As it is the delay did not result in better legislationjust more payoffs.
I was not aware the As it Cheney energy meetings resulted in the Congress pushing through legislation with little or no debate.
Obama's roll this year has been one of the rabble rouser urging the rabble to greater extremes.
By , at
Thu Jan 07, 03:48:00 PM:
To my mind, the better question is how Obama, the renowned Constitutional law "professor," didn't realize that he had no power to enforce his promise? Or maybe he did and made them anyway, which would probably be worse.
By Brian Schmidt, at
Thu Jan 07, 04:08:00 PM:
Davod - both Clinton and Cheney developed comprehensive policy recommendations behind closed doors, with legislation as the aftermath. Neither started with a publicly available policy set prior to the election, like Obama did. In contrast, the current health care legislation was where the policy developed from that campaign doc and from legislators' own intitiave, with countless hours of public debate.
My complaint is they took way too long to do it, following a well-publicized component of the presidential campaign and forty years of attempts to reform health care.
By JPMcT, at
Fri Jan 08, 01:13:00 AM:
Brian, I must have missed it. When did the "countless hours of public debate" take place? Most of these guys didn't even read the bill, much less debate on any aspects of it.
I also missed the recordings of Dick Cheney promising to debate energy policy on CSPAN and publish copies of the policy and legislation on the internet for citizens to review BEFORE the bill was introduced....
Oh...I guess that was Obama, not Cheney, wasn't it? Never mind.
You give him a 90.
Politics is Pass/Fail, Brian. The Domocrats are headed for an enourmous "F" later this year...and it is well deserved.
By Georg Felis, at
Fri Jan 08, 02:13:00 AM:
Brian: Thats a "Shoulda said" quote, not a "did say" quote.
Since it was so highly unlikely anybody would take it as a hypothetical, I didn't bother labeling it. (makes mental note)
By davod, at
Fri Jan 08, 08:08:00 AM:
"Politics is Pass/Fail, Brian. The Domocrats are headed for an enourmous "F" later this year...and it is well deserved."
An F? Can you say the Democratic leadership has failed, even if they lose big in the 2010 elections.
Obama is a left wing ideolog (incompetent, maybe, as Mark Levin is fond of saying), as is Pelosi. I do not know what Reid is.
Large parts of the economy are under the thumb of the government (The process has been much as in the Fascist model) and we are moving quickly towards a command economy (Yesterday the EPA toughened guidelines on oil and gas exploration, and we will soon have controls on how much we can breath out (CO2)).
The $789 billion stimulus package was used more as a political weapon (look for the remaining two thirds to be wielded during the mid-late 2010 election cycle)to prop up government and unions than create jobs. We now have more government workers than private enterprise workers.
Whatever passes in healthcare will be almost impossible to reform.
To top it off they have succeeded in alieanating most of our traditional allies in favor of a move to our more traditional enemies. Not to mention actively trying to suppress democracy in Honduras.
All in all a pretty good year, if your long term objective is fundamental change to the USA.
Next - change the constitution to reflect positive rights.
By Brian Schmidt, at
Fri Jan 08, 05:15:00 PM:
GeorgeF: I apologize for taking literally what you provided as a quote, when I previously mentioned I could find no such quote.
Don't know that I'm the only one who misinterpreted it as an attempt to provide responsive information, though.
By Brian Schmidt, at
Fri Jan 08, 05:18:00 PM:
And JP, I'll place token-money bets that Dems keep Senate and House this fall, and a separate bet they get Senate, House, and the White House in 2012. Fifty bucks each bet? TigerHawk to hold the money?
By JPMcT, at
Fri Jan 08, 06:52:00 PM:
Brian, you just said that to irritate me, didn't you?
Still taking climate bets??
In any event, I still give the Democrats a big F...if the grade is being given on preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States.
After all...that's supposed to be their job, heh?
For being Fascists, I agree with davod that they rate an A+.
Having said that, they did have clear majorities in both houses and a useful idiot in the White House...mostly achieved by the withdrawal of the uport of many conservative Republicans and centrists from support of Rebublican candidates, coupled with the stick market crash. They certainly didn't win on the basis of the dominance of their ideas...unless one considers ACORN an idea!!!
By Brian, at
Sat Jan 09, 03:01:00 AM:
JP - no, I didn't realize you were allergic to all bets, just climate ones. You made what sounded like a prediction that Ds would lose the election, and I thought I'd make it interesting.
My temptation though is to suggest that if you keep making provocative predictions that you could anticipate will be disputed, it might not be too surprising to find me disputing them. I would also consider it a proof that I'm not making a wild claim when I'm willing to back it up.
By JPMcT, at
Sun Jan 10, 10:59:00 AM:
Come on, Brian...you are calling my prediction that there will be a Democratic rout in November "wild"?
There seems to be a growing consensus that the speculation is far from provocative.
It's hard to imagine why so many Democrats who are up for reelection are running down the ratlines if the ship is not sinking!!
