President Obama is starting to reach that moment of truth, where the things that sounded good on the campaign trail don’t actually work out in reality. He seemed to promise that he wouldn’t use signing statements the way George W. Bush did — to ignore provisions of bills he had signed into law — but he hasn’t actually been able to avoid all signing statements, as House Democrats have noticed.
And at Wednesday night’s press conference, Obama got called out for not televising the health care negotiations on C-SPAN, another campaign promise that probably sounded better to the communications strategists than to people who actually know how Congress works.
Obama pointed out, correctly, that the White House forum on health care he held in March was televised on C-SPAN. It included all kinds of health care stakeholders as well as members of Congress from both parties, and yes, you could listen to some initial discussions of ideas and concerns various people wanted to address.
But now that actual negotiations are going on in Congress, Obama suggested the openness of those sessions is out of his control. “At a certain point, you know, you start getting into all kinds of different meetings,” Obama said. “Senate Finance is having a meeting; the House is having a meeting. If they wanted those to be on C-SPAN, then I would welcome it. I don’t think there are a lot of secrets going on in there.”
Well, yes, members of Congress could always open those meetings to C-SPAN. They could have done that before Obama took office. They don’t, though, and it appears that Obama won’t push them to do so. No one on Capitol Hill really expected him to, because when actual, sensitive discussions go on to cut deals on legislation, no one in Congress really wants to do that in front of the TV cameras.
Still, what Obama talked about on the campaign trail — many times, not just once — was televising “the negotiations,” not just a forum at the White House.
“I’m going to have all the negotiations around a big table,” Obama said at an August campaign event in Chester, Va. “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.”
It’s not the biggest issue facing Obama today. He’ll be remembered far more for whether he gets the health care overhaul policies right, and for whether he can persuade Congress to pass them, than for the C-SPAN promise that wasn’t realistic anyway.
But people are looking for signs that Obama will actually push his former congressional colleagues to do things they don’t want to do. The C-SPAN fight clearly isn’t one Obama is willing to pick with Congress. If he really wants the health care bill, though, he’ll have to push them on issues that matter a lot more.
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