Would I lie?

C-SPAN is trying to help the Obama administration keep one of its campaign promises. A promise made over 8 times. Candidate Obama promised that health care deliberations with Congress and special interests would be transparent to the extreme.

"That's what I will do in bringing all parties together, not negotiating behind closed doors, but bringing all parties together, and broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are," Obama said at a debate against Hillary Clinton in Los Angeles on Jan. 31, 2008. Don’t take my word for it though; http://www.breitbart.tv/the-c-span-lie-did-obama-really-promise-televised-healthcare-negotiations/ shows videos of then Candidate Obama telling lying to (I mean telling) the American people about wanting to have C-SPAN televise the debates.

The president, members of Congress from both parties and special interest groups have indeed all participated in negotiations, but those conversations have not been broadcast. Instead, the president has announced deals with groups like the pharmaceutical industry and the insurance industry after they were worked out in backroom deals.

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. In his letter he states, "President Obama, Senate and House leaders, many of your rank-and-file members, and the nation's editorial pages have all talked about the value of transparent discussions on reforming the nation's health care system," he wrote. "Now that the process moves to the critical stage of reconciliation between the chambers, we respectfully request that you allow the public full access, through television, to legislation that will affect the lives of every single American."

Despite their claims to the contrary, the way that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have handled the healthcare bill has been anything but transparent; the two congressional leaders intend to keep the deliberations secret as they try to merge the House and Senate versions of the legislation into something that will pass both chambers.

Democrats in both the House and Senate are saying the process will likely follow the path of the House taking up the Senate-passed legislation, amending it and sending it back to the Senate, which will have to pass it again. "This process cuts out the Republicans", indicating the congressional majority intended to make sure the Republican minority would "not have a motion to recommit opportunity."

The House passed its version of the bill on a Saturday night. The Senate held its key procedural vote at 1 in the morning, and then provided a lump of coal in our stockings by forcing full passage of its bill on Christmas Eve. The House leadership banned consideration of all but one amendment not offered by leadership itself - forbidding debate on more than 150 of them - then provided just 24 hours for members to study the bill's final text. The Senate leadership inserted so many tawdry last-minute items that analysts are still finding them 11 days later.

I guess I just don’t understand. If this is such a great deal for the American public, why wouldn’t the Democrats want to have all the proceedings televised, written about, shouted from the rooftops? “We are now finally poised to deliver on the promise of real, meaningful health insurance reform that will bring additional security and stability to the American people,” Obama said shortly after the Senate acted. “This will be the most important piece of social legislation since Social Security passed in the 1930s,” said Obama, standing with Vice President Joe Biden in the State Room of the White House. If this is true, they (the Democrats) could easily cripple the Republicans by showing why this is the best thing since the Constitution itself. Unless, as I suspect, this is one of the worst bills in history and will be full of back room deals. Not to worry though, candidate Obama also said healthcare won’t pass with a fifty-plus-one strategy. http://www.breitbart.tv/flashback-obama-says-healthcare-wont-pass-with-a-fifty-plus-one-strategy/

Just like I pointed out about Global Warming not really being about Global Warming but more about global redistribution of wealth, the health care bill is not about health care. Senator Tom Harking put it best when he stated, “it has room for expansion and additions in the future. If we don’t start the starter home, we’ll never get there. So this is not the end of health care reform, this is the beginning of health care reform.” It is not about health care reform. It is about power. It is about the power of the government to grant or withhold services if you don’t do/act the way they want.

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. - Barry Goldwater.