Obama vs. Obama on Transparency
In an interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer yesterday, President Obama accepted some “responsibility” for the secretive process that led to back-room deals with labor unions, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) in an attempt to buy support for Democrats’ government takeover of health care. He noted that the “health care debate as it unfolded legitimately raised concerns…that we [i.e. the American people] just don’t know what’s going on.” (A full transcript of the interview can be found here.)
But in response to the very next question, the President claimed that “I didn’t make a bunch of deals,” blaming the entire secretive process on Congress. That statement might come as news to Billy Tauzin, CEO of the pharmaceutical industry’s trade organization, who told the New York Times back in August that “the Administration had approached him to negotiate…‘We were assured, “We need somebody to come in first. If you come in first, you will have a rock-solid deal.”’” How can the President square his belief that he “didn’t make a bunch of deals” with lobbyists who have been publicly bragging about their “rock-solid deals” with the Administration?
Even more to the point, the President has said “we have to move forward in a way that recaptures that sense of opening things up more.” Given that statement, and the multiple news reports over the past several days indicating that Democrats are attempting to negotiate more “compromises” to jam their government takeover of health care back through the House, when can the public expect to see THOSE negotiations televised on C-SPAN?