Wednesday, January 06, 2010

President Obama violates campaign promise for transparent healthcare debate

The health care revolution will not be televised despite what President Obama promised you two years ago. We are supposed to understand that campaign promises are temporary - just to fool us to vote for him. But then Nancy Pelosi takes over. President Obama falls short on campaign promise for transparent healthcare debate - NYPOST.com:
Obama has broken his campaign promises to make the health care debate a transparent process after saying he would do so on at least eight ocassions during his 2008 White House run. Instead, Obama prodded House and Senate Democrats to get him a final health care bill as soon as possible -- encouraging them on Tuesday night to go behind closed doors and skip the usual public negotiations between the two chambers in the interest of speed. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly told voters that the health care overhaul would take place in a public forum, most notably on C-SPAN, conservative bloggers pointed out today. In a video montage posted on Breitbart.tv, Obama is seen promising voters -- on eight different occasions -- that the health care debate would be transparent. For example, during a meeting with the editorial board of The San Francisco Chronicle on Jan. 20, 2008, Obama said, "These neogtiations will be on C-SPAN, and so the public will be part of the conversation and will see the choices that are being made." In another clip, dated Nov. 14, 2008, Obama told voters that the process would be transparent. "We will work on this process publicly. It'll be on C-SPAN. It'll be streaming on the Internet," he said. This comes as Republicans seized on a Dec. 30 letter from the head of C-SPAN on Tuesday calling on congressional leaders to open the final talks to the public and cited Obama's campaign trail pledge to do just that. But Democrats have reacted defensively to criticism that they are taking the most crucial stage of the debate behind closed doors, contending they've conducted a transparent process with hundreds of public meetings and legislation posted online. Asked about that promise, Pelosi retorted, without elaboration, "There are a number of things he was for on the campaign trail."
See a video at the link above and more at Breitbart.tv.

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