Breaking promises is way more fun than political transparency

By now you’ve probably heard about how during the 2008 presidential race Obama promised to have all the health care debates televised on C-SPAN, and how the Congress is bypassing the conference committee, which would be open and televised, and opting for a closed door negotiation between the houses.

Now, Obama can’t really control what Congress does.  So, he really shouldn’t have promised that’s how the bill would be handled.  But, I’ll cut him some slack and interpret that promise as just him promising to at least ask Congress to make the process more open, or maybe even to put some pressure on them, or just show some leadership on the issue.  (He also can’t promise that C-SPAN will do anything, as it’s an independent news organization, but I think he was just making the accurate prediction that it’s something they would televise if given the chance.)

But what about things under the White House’s control?  Obama hasn’t been entirely absent from the decision making (though it does feel that way).  There have been meetings and negotiations and what not involving Obama and other White House staff.  So did Obama invite C-SPAN in?  Nope.

All the White House has done to follow through on its promise is give C-SPAN a one hour dog-and-pony show.  Now, we all know that presidential candidates can’t live up to all their promises.  They don’t control everything that goes on in the country and they have to adapt their plans as facts on the ground change.  But, this is the type of promise that is totally in Obama’s control, which makes it particularly bad that he’s broken it.