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Obama Campaign Vow of Public Debate on Health Care Fading
WASHINGTON - Campaigning for president, Barack Obama said repeatedly that any overhaul of the health care system should be negotiated publicly and televised for all to see. Throughout this year's negotiations, however, the big deals have been struck in secret.
Thousands rallied outside the Capitol to show their support for revamping the nation's health care system, June 25, 2009, in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Councill / MCT) With tax increases and limits on what's covered among the possible ways of offsetting perhaps $1 trillion over a decade in expenses, neither the administration nor Congress is willing to give up its right to do the most sensitive talking in private, as it's always been done.
"It's unrealistic to think every aspect of the negotiations is going to be public," said Senate Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin, D-Ill.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, traveling with Obama in L'Aquila, Italy, said Thursday that "this president has demonstrated more transparency than any president." He said that Obama had participated in multiple town-hall meetings with doctors, nurses and providers to discuss revamping health care.
"I don't think the president intimated that every decision putting together a health care bill would be on public TV," Gibbs said.
The notion of televising negotiations behind a health care revamp was so central to Obama's campaign promises of change and openness, however, that it became part of his stump speech as he traveled the country in 2007 and 2008.
He'd describe how televised deliberations would take place around a big table, with seats filled by doctors, nurses, insurers and other interested parties. As president, he'd joke, he'd get the biggest chair.
"Not negotiating behind closed doors, but bringing all parties together and broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN," Obama explained in a Democratic debate in Los Angeles in January 2008, in language similar to many of his campaign stops.
However, the two biggest deals so far - industry agreements to cut drug and hospital costs - were reached in secret.
"They were private, yes," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., a key participant in the process.
C-SPAN, the cable public-policy network, did carry a White House Forum on Health Reform in early March in which the president spoke and participants fanned into working groups.
That was a kickoff event, however, not a negotiation. C-SPAN spokesman John Cardarelli said that beyond that, "There hasn't been a collaborative effort of coordination of coverage of 'special events.' " The decisions about what to air are made independently on a case-by-case basis, he said.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee's bill-writing sessions, which began about three weeks ago, have been open, and various committees and subcommittees have had dozens of public hearings.
The private sessions continue, however.
Four Senate Republicans met for an hour and a half Wednesday to discuss health care with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Separately, Sens. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and John Kerry, D-Mass., have been in intense discussions. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Office of Health Reform director Nancy-Ann DeParle are in constant, private contact with key players.
The House of Representatives could vote on a plan before the August recess. The Senate is poised for a longer debate. Assuming they pass differing plans, any final product would emerge from a conference committee, whose negotiations typically offer even less public scrutiny.
Lawmakers, health care interests and public policy experts acknowledge that Obama's campaign vision hasn't exactly come to pass.
"Sometimes for people to say what's really on their mind, it helps to do it outside the public eye," said Senate Finance Committee member Thomas Carper, D-Del. "Could the process be more transparent? I suppose it could be."
The health care negotiations are "no different from any other negotiation over the years when deals are struck quietly," said Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee and a member of the health committee.
Some experts said that Obama's decision, once in office, to ask Congress to write the legislation rather than repeat the Clinton administration's failed approach in 1993 of writing its own bill and delivering it to Capitol Hill meant that the president was relinquishing control of how public the process would be.
They said that despite all the private talks involved in this year's effort, it was still far more open than others had been, including the Clinton plan.
"I think it's been as open as it can be given the way things work around here," said William A. Galston, a former policy adviser to President Bill Clinton who's now affiliated with the center-left Brookings Institution, a research center.
In contrast, Galston said, the Clinton health care task force was "a systematically insulated process. We had hundreds of participants on the inside, but it was not a process that was designed to be open to public scrutiny during the actual drafting. What's happened now is significantly more public."
Last month, Baucus and the pharmaceutical industry announced on a Saturday afternoon that they'd reached a deal to cut drug costs for elderly people. The White House gave the talks "its blessing," said Ken Johnson, a senior vice president at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. "The average person doesn't understand our business model."
Vice President Joe Biden formally announced another deal Wednesday, in which leading hospital groups would accept $155 billion in cuts to government programs. Biden and the hospital executives who flanked him declined to take questions from reporters.
One participant who agreed to talk later, Sister Carol Keehan, the president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, said that her group had been in "constant conversation" with policymakers, which had "accelerated in the last month."
In May, two Senate committees, Finance and Commerce, held three days of closed-door meetings to discuss health care legislation. One of the meetings lasted eight hours, and participants said that no agreement was reached on the biggest controversy, a public-insurance option.
Committee members said this week that none of these deals or meetings violated the spirit of transparency.
In a twist, the post-campaign version of Obama's grass-roots group, Organizing for America, now controlled by the Democratic National Committee, sent an e-mail this week to supporters asking them to call their lawmakers and urge them to back Obama's concept of health care restructuring.
"The behind-the-scenes committee negotiations aren't front page news," the e-mail said, but warned that "as we speak, key committees in Congress are weighing options and making final decisions about how to tackle health care reform. This could be one of the last opportunities to shape the legislation before it's written."
(Steven Thomma contributed to this report from L'Aquila, Italy.)
78 Comments so far
Show AllIs it time for a not so velvet revolution?
I think it is time for the people to rise up. It is soooooooooooo clear that we are being screwed....and it sure ain't fun.
I agree, however rising up takes organization and pulling people away from their mesmerizing addictive TV's is going to be difficult. Everyone loves to talk but no one seems to act much. Boycott seems good but how many would actually participate. Standing on street corners help a little but ultimately the change would have to come from the middleclasses to the poor and it is tiring to actually fight these corporations for control, they have so much more resources than we do. Stop buying and watch them pass on the costs of everything to us. Banks pass on the costs with fees, pharmaceuticals with rising drug costs, you name the company they pass on the costs of everything to us just to keep their profits high. Everytime I read this blog I get more and more depressed. Share information and keep on trying though. Join the fight for our country wherever you can!
"Committee members said this week that none of these deals or meetings violated the spirit of transparency."
Somewhere, George Orwell is laughing his ass off.
q
Hmmm... if the oh too, too solid flesh of men reputedly have transparent spirits, I suppose that, contrariwise, "the spirit of transparency" itself must be utterly opaque.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Will the people who voted for this sell-out ever get it? Doubtful, as they are still under the spell of the MSM. One of the most remarkable bait and switches of all time. Too late...no guarantees..no warranty...no returns. Campaign promises.....dust in the wind......America....is it not time to make your own plans?
Baucus is desperate to do anything to link his political legacy to Obama. He lost the fight in Libby against WR Grace and now sees this sham of healthcare reform as a way to mark his career as successful and line his pockets for yet another bid at reelection.
He has bought into the argument that the only way to reform healthcare is to raise payroll taxes on the people who can't afford healthcare. He isn't interested in reforming healthcare access for people who need it. He wants to improve the profitability of insurance conglomerates and healthcare professionals who, as we all know, so desperately need the money.
Stay in Washington, Max. Keep Tester and Rehburg there, too. If you all raise the taxes on some of the poorest working people in the nation, you guys won't be getting much of a welcome back home.
From the article:
Ken Johnson, a senior vice president at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said, "The average person doesn't understand our business model."
And it's a damn good thing for you, Ken. You'd better hope they never do.
A joke that runs through "Pirates of the Caribbean" concerns Capt. Jack Sparrow's advice to his crew to always "keep to the Pirate's Code." At one point when they've called him out for a perceived violation, however, he explains "But the Code's not hard and fast, it's more like a set of guidelines."
Compare that to this update on O'Bummer's campaign promise of transparency: "It's unrealistic to think every aspect of the negotiations is going to be public," said Senate Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin, D-Ill.
The question I'd put to Senate Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin is "Why is it unrealistic?" It might be inconvenient, but that's a different matter.
Please, use your loaf. Look at the whole circumstance.
With the economy in the toilet, what government is going to put the massive health care insurance industry on the chopping block, or put an end to the vast money using wars we are engaged in. Circulating massive amounts of money into the money laundering scheme that the world economy has become is the name of the game.
Now add in that it's our economy that is the direct cause of the global environmental crisis. And BINGO a real catch 22.
There is absolutely no way we can solve any of our problems doing the same as we have done in the past and expect a differing result.
That's a symptom of insanity methinks.
However the thought that governance is a criminal enterprise has the ring of truth to me.
The HAVES will not stop until they have wrung the last drop of juice from the Earth.
A criminal intent if ever I saw one.
Ya, I'm convinced Uncle Scam is a mafia, plain and simple.
I don't mind private meetings as long as they are working for the interests of the people that elected them.
Of course, they're not. They are working for the people who bought them. Welcome to Amerika.
I can't help thinking Kafka's view of Amerika is downright optimistic compared to what we're experiencing today.
Would there be wireless at The Hotel Occidental?
Same here, it's not the private meetings, it's the fact that single-payer system is OFF THE TABLE!
I know what they are discussing behind closed doors!
Ken Johnson, a senior vice president at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said, "The average person doesn't understand our business model."
What we do understand is that politicians cannot serve two masters, especially when one pays better than the other. Why else would an "artificial" person (corporation) get a seat at the table while "natural" persons are being kept in the dark?
We clearly understand the business model, Ken, and it's "business as usual".
That statement by Ken Johnson is typical of the arrogance shown by our masters. It's what they think of us, it's what they count on.
Nothing short of paternalism.
of COURSE such things are conducted in secrecy, while the orwellian double good quackspeakers pontificate about 'transparency'. you can bet no corporate or beltway shill will see their 'healthcare' left behind in this 'democracy'. if there were REAL transparency the atrocities of war and corporate plunder would be abolished successfully by decent humanitarian impulses. it all comes down to whether a person or group (and we need to work to see ourselves AS a group and not these separate, isolated hyperindividualistic consumers!) earnestly wants to know and tell the truth & participate as drops in the ocean of life we are, as opposed to simply gain advantage over others and remake reality to fit into a controllable, convenient box. that model is collapsing so spectacularly both collectively and individually, it may ultimately bode well for us all if we can rise to the occasion with the willingness to be present with the overwhelm and resist the lies of breakable promises and conduct our lives with persistent decency, creativity and intelligence however we're able. perhaps it's a good thing we're on our own out here with the rest of the planet's humans, to fend for ourselves and at last learn a little something about disease prevention via educating ourselves about soil health and real food and doing our best to prevent privatization/monetization of water and all other life support systems. we must learn how to network as stewards of this gorgeous earth and advocates for one another and unplug from the collective trance of greed and fear.
Matangicita: Really good. Double Speak is the word and those crooks in Washington could give a twit about the rest of us. We are living in a Orwellian world now and have been for some time. Many just haven't realized it yet. The professional political crooks and the big corporations learned from G. Orwell and have kept the masses worrying about everyday life such as keeping a good credit score and voluntary slavery consumption. It becomes obvious during elections for those of us that take notice of the double speak. Have a good day.
"The average person doesn't understand our business model."
- Ken Johnson, senior vice president, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
---------------------
We understand YOU better than YOU do.
And we'd be more than happy to discuss our understanding of YOU in public or private.
it is not surprising that there are private discussions. What can be made transparent, however, is the process, the meetings, who's involved, what's discussed, and the outcomes in detail. We'll never see or hear about that, though, because selling out the American public will never be made transparent.
With the exception of a precious few, time to vote out the lot of them. the MSM media feeds us stories of politicians affairs, but we should be more worried about how they are all in bed with the corporate interests.
What did it take to end slavery in the USA? A war.
What did it take to gain real civil rights for the descendants of those slaves? Marches in the streets, arrests, lynchings, water cannons,National guard to protect blacks entering white schools.
What did it take to end child labor? Marches in the streets, shootings, beatings.
What did it take for women to get the right to not be chattel and have the right to vote?
What did it take for workers to get the right to organize?
What did it take to bring an end to the Vietnam war? Four dead in Ohio.
What will it take for all Americans to get the right to life, general welfare, and universal health care?
Obama speaks from both ends of his body. It means nothing. What means something is the people of our country standing up and doing more than mouth platitudes.
a war is the dumbest idea.
i really liked howard zinn's article about how the US had an independence war but canada never had one.
we do not need a war.
what did it take for people to say no to that bill that would have criminalized undocumented immigrants and those who help them?
it took people marching in the streets PEACEFULLY! no war, just peaceful marches.
Wasn't that quite a bit later than 1776? How peaceful would it have been if you had declared Independence at the same time as America?
I'd suggest there is no comparison at all.
Oregoncharles
If Americans want to put pressure on their government (ie, the corporate classes) they would have to hit 'em where it matters - their profits. Yes, a violent uprising would be dumb and counter-productive.
How many progressives would stay home from work for three days a month? How many progressives would refuse to pay health care premiums? Can they shoot you with tasers and rubber bullets for not shopping, ever, at a corporate entity? Can they arrest you for calling in sick?
Marching around in the streets will not bring change unless it seriously interferes with business.
I really don't have a problem with a violent uprising at this point. I'm not sure why others here think that peace--in these matters--is productive. It's not.
The country was bankrupted (note that I'm not saying "nearly bankrupted) by our corporate masters. Trillions and trillions of our tax dollars were handed to war profiteers. Trillions of our health insurance dollars disappear into the pockets of CEOs and stockholders.
What is it going to take, America? Will the corporations have to take your lives before you do something to hit them back hard? Guess what? The insurance companies are already killing thousands of you each year by denying the healthcare you need.
I just don't understand the dumbness of Americans anymore. Fleeced, economically raped, stolen elections, and still too lazy to do anything except bang on keyboards.
And please: I know there is somebody who is going to say that all I'm doing is banging on a keyboard. Don't go there: You don't know what else I've done to get the lead out of Americans and representatives. Nothing works.
"Marching around in the streets will not bring change unless it seriously interferes with business." Oregoncharles speaks the flat out TRUTH here.
If there is a demonstration that has a permit to walk down empty streets on the weekend, or there is a gathering in a park or public square at noon, DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME. If we are not bothering the business interests; we are doing nothing at all. I get feelings of depression to go to any of these affairs. At each such demonstration the crowd is thinner. Even if hundreds of people yell and wave their cardboard handmade signs it never makes the 'news'. ('news' is, as I'm sure you know, only propaganda by the powerful meant to make us feel powerless and hopeless.)
As long as we do follow their rules, we are indeed powerless and hopeless---and a bit stupid too. We have to follow the methods of Critical Mass. Get together at some downtown spot at five in the afternoon on a work day. No plan as to which way we will march. And this is not a one time thing. It has to happen at least once a month. Each month is will be larger. More people that lose their job, lose their home, get denied health care, get their interest rates raised, can't afford education, come home from the wars totally devastated by physical and mental wounds, the crowd will grow.
Stand up people. Read the Declaration of Independence. It is our right and our duty to throw over this corrupt government and form a new one to meet our needs for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Not advocating for war.
Stating history.
Five minutes sharing your view on a website won't cut it.
we understand that.
but you have to realize the negative influence that the conservative movement has put in our heads about government.
they literally brainwashed average americans into thinking that certain basic rights should be privatized and that government is inept.
it will take one person at a time.
luckily the 'left' has internet on their side to help them organize.
the best example i can think of to relate to the average american who is against single payer universal health care.
is to ask them if they think fire, police, and education should be privatized.
and take it from there.
Oregoncharles
Sure, we need to work harder at convincing single payer nay-sayers that the health care system, which most industrialized countries enjoy, is far superior to ours.
But don't forget, 70% of Americans favor a government plan! So it's not the people we need to convince, it's our own corporate owned politicians who are blocking the people's agenda. That should be illegal. Polls say Americans favor single payer, yet it is OFF THE TABLE? It's criminal.
The only way to convince these corporate shills is to make it unprofitable for government to ignore the wishes of the majority of people.
Enraged citizens in some countries, when bullied by their corporate run political shills, make life miserable for the profiteers. Strikes. Sitting in the streets, stopping the flow of traffic, etc.
All the hope and promise gives way to the same tired broken system that works for a handful of elites: same deals in smoke filled rooms, behind closed doors, where a handful of pond scum churns out their deceit, lies, obfuscations, corruption, and then decides what is best for the rest of us. They see us as timid sheep, lacking vitality, nor willing to subject them to any reprisals whatsoever.
And why not?
The herd keeps electing the same people, then defends the vote with various rationalizations, which include, ‘move them to the left’ or ‘hold their feet to the fire’ or ‘McCain would be worse’ or ‘work from within’ all taken under the banner of the lesser evil mantra. Again and again - issue after issue - despite the politician, the results are always the same, corporations win and we lose.
Now, the final results are pouring in demonstrating how we are being played.
Health care will provide windfall profits for corporate interests, leaving the herd gasping for breath, bruised, scratching their heads, and wondering what happened.
Sadly, These norms will be repeated in four years hence: when the current protests and angst fades, and the sheepl crawl back to their masters in the Democratic and Republican Parties to repeat the same dysfuntional relationship. (A liner feedback loop.)
Ever consider a recovery program?
Oregoncharles
"Work from within" the system.
"Take back the Democratic Party from within!" Ha! What a laugh.
I'd have more luck rising to the top management tier of Walmart than having any influence over the Democratic Party. You can't get past the first rung unless you sell your soul. It's rigged. It's why my Senator Ron Wyden says, "The American people are not ready for a single payer health care." Can you believe that? What a shill.
So, WE the People must rely our own ways of disrupting their hurtful, vicious system while building up our own equitable, democratic one.
For starts, I hope you all have changed your party affiliation to Green. Maybe the Greens aren't what you want them to be but that's only because YOU AREN'T THERE to help build the party.
Someone on Alternet commented that by calling your rep and Senator to say that you are no longer a registered Dem, that you're now a Green Party voter, you will putting some fear into their so self satisfied hearts.
Green candidate for president, Cynthia McKinny, who was recently arrested by Israel for bringing aid into Gaza, received only .01% of the vote - in favor of Barack Obama.
The midterms weren't a big enough slap in the face, progressives had to ask for a kick in the groin.
From what I gather as an outside observer, the PR war is being lost by the Corporations and by their bought and paid for Government.
Unlike in past years the Public seems much more aware of how broken this system is and how it designed to deliver profits to the Insurance and Health Care providers, rather then health care to the people. (There are certainly members of the Public still buying the notion that Health Care a Commodity to be bought and sold , but a critical mass seems to have been reached by those opposed to such ideology)
The excuses for not having single payer and the rationale offerred as to why a privately delivered for profit system are just not cutting it. They border on the pathetic in many cases.
This with the tremendous power of the Industry, The Government and the main Stream Media behind them.
They try and sell swampland! They know it, the public knows it and the Public are not buying THUS they have to change the rules midstream. They have to SHUT The Public out. Too many of them are becoming too informed and the old fear tactics are not working as they once did.
This does NOT mean the people will get Single payer. It does mean the Government as an agency of the Lobbyists and of Corporations will be more obvious then ever. They are all but coming out and declaring who they truly work for.
"The average person doesn't understand our business model."
- Ken Johnson, senior vice president, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
Yes, it's difficult to get folks to understand why you are willing to profit by helping those that are able to afford your vital, and protected, products stay alive, while letting those that are unable to afford such die...
Just as it's difficult to get folks to understand why your siamese twin, the Insurance industry, is willing to profit by taking large amounts of money up front with promises of coverage, only to work tirelessly to avoid paying when requested, again, letting people die...
These are hard things to understand...profiting off of other folks' illness and death...
Happy Friday, Everybody! Gorgeous day in the Pacific NW...let's get those gardens growing!
The SOBs are carving us up behind closed doors. "Here's your cut. Here's mine." And then the big public roll out will be the requirement that we all pay. We pay, they carve. Hey! We made it to the table. We're not at it; we're on it!
"Hey! We made it to the table. We're not at it; we're on it!"
Warning to Pitch Fork: shameless plagiarism will be committed.
Wow. Obama has the chutzpah to order us good little robots to call our legislators to tell them to support his plan without him having to tell us what the plan is! What arrogance! And how sad that the majority of the people seem content to sit there and take it, if they even know what is going on. I'm here in California, where our legislature twice passed a single payer bill, only to have it vetoed by our Republican governor, and still the majority of self-styled "progressives" I talk to are opposed to single payer and have bought the corporate lies re health care reform.
Yep. I have contacted my Congressman (and asked him, publicly, if he would stand with the American people and not the health insurance industry and support HR 676) and received some nonsense reply about how he supports Obama's "health care reform." Obviously NOT Single Payer, in spite of what Obama said back in 2003 (google Obama single payer 2003 and see the video on Youtube). Then there was the bragging point about how he helped pass the extension of ScHIP, which doesn't do me any good since I have no children; I'm the one who needs coverage.
And my so-called "liberal" friends, too, keep having excuses for why America can't have Single Payer: it's too "radical," it's not something we can get overnight, it won't work here in America... and the worst comment: "at least the Democrats are doing SOMEthing, and something is better than nothing."
The easiest way to control the American public is to lower the moral. Our government continues to do that with health care.
I utilize a program in L.A. county that can be applied to every citizen of the United States. We even allow non-citizens access to health care.
There seems to be a large fund set up for those who should have received settlements from Social Security based on illegal behavior mainly done by corporations in the state of California.
Obama is covering up facts like these by saying the citizens have to make this known. That's sad when they already know this...
Health care is a human right. 28 industrial nations have universal health care we do not. Our health care is 37th in the world just behind Botswana.18,000 a year die from no health care or for profit health care.
In this democracy it is our right and obligation that we the people fight for our rights or watch them swirl down the shitter as we are seeing.
It does no good to sit in our underwear airing out our genitals and blog our brains out. Action is necessary.
Here in Maine climate change has brought us 6 weeks of fog and rain. I am on the third planting and can not this year even feed myself with my own efforts.
As this recession continues more will suffer and die, lose their homes, lose their jobs and abandon hope. We the people must stand up and take action or lay down and admit that we exist only as wage slaves for the rich.
Oregoncharles
"We the people must stand up and take action ..."
And just what kind of action are you contemplating?
A year or more ago, Gareth Porter, writing in Harper's Magazine, suggested a general strike.
Some have talked about a movement to "burn health insurance cards," dropping their insurance for a year. OUCH! that might hurt the big bullies.
Oregoncharles
A correction on my last post, July 10, 2:46pm
It was Garret Keizer, not Gareth Porter, who wrote the Harper's Magazine piece suggesting a general strike.
A few months ago, I got shouted at with the typical "commie" and even smacked with a pie in my face for bringing up single payer. Details on another health care related article today. With such ignorant masses like these, no wonder Obama is free to break promises and laugh at us !
Bennett Miller
Shreveport, LA
I understand totally what you are saying. Let us pray that people wake up and are willing to face the truth and stand up to him.
Let me begin with shameless plagiarism........
"Hey! We made it to the table. We're not at it; we're on it!"
I believe its quite clear at this point that the American people have been betrayed by this President, this congress and the Democratic party.
Not only has every important piece of legislation to this point been manufactured behind closed doors, every single pledge concerning how things would change in the way of doing things has been broken.
Health Care for Americans has simply been rearranged in the forth coming bill. Not only won't it cover all Americans, it will simply increase the profit for those already taking enormous profits and the level of care will decrease, not get better, get worse.
I am simply puzzled how anyone still supports this bunch of liars, tramps and thieves (thanks Cher)
While our economy sinks, job loss increases, the neediest citizens ranks grow.....instead of trying to stimulate the economy, they busy themselves with trying to divvy up health care dollars. Protect cheap labor for business. Plague every American with an energy tax that does nothing measurable for the environment and provide money for the most shameful programs. (Pelosi's Sand Mouse in California....Turtle Tunnels in Florida)
Republicans are mouthing off about those things (they have plenty of their own little programs just like these) but I say they are right.
We have folks out of work here, kids parents who had jobs and are now unemployed, infrastructure that could certainly be rejuvenated, etc........why the great interest in all these shameful waste of money while denying the only clear cut solution to health care, which is Single Payer?
Oregoncharles
Excellent!
Obama may be a liar and a traitor but the republicans are not right about anything.
They oppose Obama simply because he has successfully diverted more dirty corporate campaign money that used to go to republicans to the democrats.
The ongoing war of words between the republicans and dems is like a cat fight in a whorehouse.
q
"It's unrealistic to think every aspect of the negotiations is going to be public," said Senate Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin, D-Ill.
Why is doing the peoples' work in public "unrealistic?"
"I don't think the president intimated that every decision putting together a health care bill would be on public TV," Gibbs said.
Why not? Public TV is exactly the correct place to have this debate.
President Obaminable is in on the closed-doors deal, don't get fooled. Like his "desire" to close Guantanamo got shutdown by congress, his health care travesty is being flushed down the toilet the same exact way. But Obysmal needs to look like he at least tried, so the Dem Party Apologists, Lesser Evilists and Dem Kool-Aid Drinkers are kept happy, fools that they are. Blind fools.
What is clearly shaping up as the obama "style" is this:
it is like a Theatre - a show - the emcee announces to much fanfare that the "show" is about to come on - the curtain rises - to much fanfare - the participants are introduced - to much fanfare -
and THEN the CURTAIN FALLS and the "show" goes "on".
and the audience is left wondering when the show will "go on".......
and the exit the theatre having been robbed of their money for the tickets - poorer - and still going home to the same "show" .
it is like a SHOW showing a Show of Nothing.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING AT ALL - as shakespeare would say.
this applies to the Economics, to health care, to Wars, to "we are not occupiers" - to "change" in latin america policies - to "we are equals" with other nations.
ALL BIG TALK and NOTHING at all behind it.
a FRAUD continuing as it always has.