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On Jan. 6, Chip Reid of CBS News asked Gibbs at the briefing, “During the campaign, the president on numerous occasions said words to the effect of, quoting one, ‘All of this will be done on C-SPAN in front of the public.’ Do you agree that the president is breaking an explicit campaign promise?”
“You know, Chip, we covered this yesterday, and I would refer you to yesterday's transcript.”
Reid pressed, “But today is today, and –”
Gibbs retorted, “And the answer that I would give today is similar to the one –”
Reid said, “But there was an intervening – there was an intervening meeting in which it's been reported that the president pressed the leaders in Congress to take the fast-track approach, to skip the conference committee. Did he do that?”
Gibbs said, “The president wants to get a bill to his desk as quickly as possible.”
Reid again asked, “In spite of the fact that he promised to do this on C-SPAN?”
Gibbs said, “I would refer you to what we talked about in this room yesterday.”
On Tuesday, the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) sent a letter to congressional leaders asking that negotiations take place in public.
“We realize such negotiations are sensitive and that Congress prefers to conduct negotiations in private to foster frank discussion, but the health-care legislation is too important to the American people to craft in secret,” said the letter signed by SPJ President Kevin Smith.
“Every day in newspaper editorial pages across the country people from all partisan philosophies are expressing their intense interest in this issue and their hunger for information. They want to see the sausage being made. Legislation developed behind closed doors fuels paranoia, mistrust and contempt by citizens for Congress and the president,” it added.
