Dems Called On to Televise Health Care Talks
01/05/10
Continuing his tireless, vitriolic and bitterly partisan assault on the Obama administration, Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck today called on the Obama White House and the Congressional Democrats to make good on an Obama campaign promise: embrace openness and transparency and allow the final portion of the health care bill negotiations to be televised.
Oh, wait... what's that you say? It wasn't Glenn Beck? It wasn't even anyone at Fox News?
That's right, the call came from that bastion of conservative rancor, C-SPAN and its CEO Brian Lamb:
C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb wrote to leaders in the House and Senate Dec. 30 urging them to open "all important negotiations, including any conference committee meetings," to televised coverage on his network.
"The C-SPAN networks will commit the necessary resources to covering all of the sessions LIVE and in their entirety," he wrote.
The sheer audacity of C-SPAN, wanting to hold President Obama to his campaign promise...
To achieve health care reform, "I'm going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We'll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies -- they'll get a seat at the table, they just won't be able to buy every chair. But what we will do is, we'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies. And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process."
Sources: Town hall meeting on Aug. 21, 2008, in Chester, Va.
You'll also recall that then-candidate Obama also pledged to post any major legislation online for at least a week before said legislation was voted on. It's a pledge that was unceremoniously broken with the stimulus bill and the health care bills.
So, is there any hope that Obama and the Dems will capitulate to C-SPAN's imploring and open up these talks to public viewing?
Congressional leaders, however, reportedly are expected to bypass the traditional conference committee process, in which lawmakers from both parties and chambers meet to reconcile differences between the House and Senate versions of a bill. Instead, The Associated Press reports that top Democrats at the House, Senate and White House will figure out the final product in three-way talks before sending it back to both chambers for a final vote.
Shocking.