"Private Talks" On Healthcare: The End Of Public Service?

Moments ago, New Jersey Congressman Frank Pallone, a Democrat, gave an interview on television about "transparency." His answer was stunning, and it included the use of the word "private" at least five times.

Recent complaints have been voiced that Mr. Obama's many campaign promises that C-SPAN would be permitted access to every step of the healthcare reform process (and other legislative debates), have been anything but kept. Mr. Obama, as you know, campaigned as a champion of transparency; his would be the most open and accessible administration in history. (Speaker Pelosi has made similar claims about the Congress she helps lead.) But it seems that C-SPAN is not really happy with the access it has or has not had.

And this is what Mr. Pallone was being asked about: Where, Congressman Pallone, is the transparency when C-SPAN is not permitted access to the current debates between house and senate delegates over the details of a final healthcare bill?

Essentially (and I am not making this up) Mr. Pallone dismissed the charge that legislative transparency appeared rather opaque, saying that the healthcare reform process has been the most transparent legislative process ever. But, he added in self-contradictory (?) fashion, NO BILL could ever be passed without "private discussions" or "private conversations"; that it was impossible that ANY legislation could EVER be passed without "private" dealings between legislators. Hence, C-SPAN had gone far enough, or Mr. Pallone averred. Not everything could be transparent.

So, what does this mean? First, it means Mr. Pallone shows us that Barack Obama's campaign was wrong: the amount of public access to the legislative process has ALWAYS been satisfactory. Mr. Obama's campaign promises that -- finally  -- America could witness for itself the legislative process were foolishly superfluous: NO LAW can be finally legislated EXCEPT in privacy. No amount of C-SPAN coverage will change any of that. In other words, if the amount of C-SPAN coverage of healthcare is fine for Mr. Pallone, coverage that is equal to anything that happened in previous years, then there was no need for promises of "greater transparency."

Second, Mr. Pallone has shown that Mr. Obama, who served a brief stint as the junior US senator from Illinois during his bid for the White House, was making promises out of utter ignorance, OR with utter disregard for truth. Surely ANY senator would know that there is a profoundly well-guarded "private" dimension to legislation. To imply American litigation would be finally fully transparent once Mr. Obama was elected president, as Mr. Obama surely did, was either born of Mr. Obama's ignorance of the PRIVATE legislature that exists in the secret chambers of a PUBLIC house and senate, or Mr. Obama was lying when he promised transparency. He either knew that "no bill" can be passed without "private talks" or he didn't. If he knew it, then he lied. If he didn't, then he was ignorant.

Interestingly, Mr. Pallone is not alone. His defense of "private conversations" -- and keeping C-SPAN at bay -- is also offered by progressive Igor Volsky of the Center for American Progress:

"It’s no exaggeration to claim that health care reform is only possible because of the ritualistic ping-pong back and forth that occurs through private conversations."

Mr. Volsky, in true progressive fashion, added that C-SPAN's access to the whole debate, while part of a transparent process, did not "improve" the legislation or the legislative process. In other words, transparency is wildly important -- at least when George W. Bush was in office -- but transparency does not really "improve" anything.

Huffington Post writer David Sirota summed up Mr. Volksy's argument perfectly:

"[Volsky is saying that] Transparency might be fine and dandy, but it didn't improve anything -- and the only thing that improves anything is secrecy."

In the end, what we discover is that the awful way things were done in the Bush Administration were not all that awful, and that those who have taken up the noble duty of "public service" can only do their best work in "private talks."

Who could have known that there exists such a precious and vital private sphere in the the public halls of Congress?

I, for one, would have liked it if the former senator who occupies the White House had known about this private-sector intrusion on the public sector of Congress BEFORE he ran for office.

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