By News on the Net ——Bio and Archives--August 10, 2009
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Since the election, Tauzin has morphed into the president's partner. He has been invited to the White House half a dozen times in recent months. There, he says, he eventually secured an agreement that the administration wouldn't try to overturn the very Medicare drug policy that Obama had criticized on the campaign trail.Hamburger quotes Tauzin as telling the press that the deal he’s made with Obama is secure. "The White House blessed it," he said. But as I’ve noted before, Obama’s “deals” are empty of any standing as the so-called deals he’s made thus far have resulted in no actual benefit to anyone… except Obama’s false reputation as one who will “listen to all sides.” Several powerful Congressmen have already said that since they were not included in any of Obama’s supposed deal making sessions with healthcare industry lobbyists, then they don’t feel any obligation to honor them. Further, since the White House has not actually participated in any of the actual legislation, since the administration has left all the details -- and I do mean all of them -- to Congress he has no real way to add his purported agreements to any legislation. So, in truth this LAT report is meaningless. So why try to sell it? Well, it does serve several purposes, none of them as news. First it burnishes Obama’s false reputation as the man that will “listen to all sides.” If he seems< to be dealing with friend and foe alike, why it seems as if he is a centrist looking only for what works. Does it matter if this is a smoke screen that is achieving nothing in reality? Apparently not.
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