Mickey Kaus, usually the most insightful commentator, is way off the mark on the "transparency question".
Complaints about the Dems failure to televise or otherwise open up the House/Senate health care negotiations seem near-completely hollow (as were Obama's promises during the campaign). Real legislative deals are always most efficiently cut behind closed doors, where the principals can be candid and concession-minded without fear of embarrassment, and where they can't grandstand. ... That's life. It's not like we don't know what the issues are, or that we won't find out how they've been resolved ....If the Dems let C-SPAN cover the negotiations they'd just have to find another room nearby in which to hold the real negotiations first. ...
Kaus is almost certainly right that most of the real deal-making in legislation goes on behind the scenes, and he is right about the reasons.
But that is not the real point. The point is the contradiction between what the Democrats are doing and what the President promised, solemnly, on more than one occasion, on the campaign trail. He said he'd put it on C-SPAN. He isn't living up to his word. Whether you think it's the original promise or the breaking of that promise that is the real sin, the contradiction is the issue.
Kaus misses another vital point. The Dems will still cut the deal behind closed doors even if they schedule a regular conference committee and put it on TV. But in a televised hearing, the Democrats would have to publicly defend a deal before it has been officially made or announced. Afterwards, when the bill is on the floor of each house, it will be too late to make any changes and the Dems will only have to defend the bill as a whole.
UPDATE: Mr. Obama promised on no less than eight occasions to televise the health care debates.
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