Obama and Public Debate

By George Joyce

At a town hall meeting in Chester, Va. back in August last year candidate Obama had this to say about the important value of public debate regarding health care:

"People say, 'Well, you have this great health care plan, but how are you going to pass it? You know, it failed in '93,' And what I've said is, 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."

Just a couple of days ago, at a town hall occasion – again in Virginia - Mr. Obama had the following to say about value of public debate regarding his plan for the nation’s economy:

"I don't want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess.”

Well, for some reason the health care negotiations never made it to C-SPAN, and Mr. Obama seems determined to eliminate some healthy debate on America’s economic recovery. In light of our proximity to economic catastrophe maybe there just isn’t enough time for these sorts of civic luxuries.

While Candidate Obama sounds like a truly committed servant of the people, President Obama sounds, well, like something else entirely. Strange.