Americanslearned last year that President Obama discards campaign promises likemost people discard used Kleenex. Among the pledges he cast aside werereducing the deficit, reining in federal spending, not allowinglobbyists to work in his administration, increasing taxes only on thosewho make more than $250,000, and opposing "government-run health care"because it is "extreme."
This year, Mr. Obama is picking up where he left off.
Consider presidential signing statements. Since Andrew Jackson,presidents of both parties have told Congress that while they aresigning a bill into law, they intend to ignore specific provisionsbecause they involve unconstitutional restrictions on the executivebranch or are otherwise problematic. A president's power to do thissprings from his oath of office, through which each new chief executivepromises to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution."
Because of Washington's hyperpartisan atmosphere, President GeorgeW. Bush drew heated criticism from Democrats for his signingstatements. Among his toughest critics was Barack Obama, who in aquestionnaire for the Boston Globe in 2007 accused Mr. Bush of "clearabuse" in using signing statements "to avoid enforcing certainprovisions . . . the President does not like." He promised not to usesigning statements to "nullify or undermine congressional instructionsas enacted into law."
YetMr. Obama started issuing signing statements shortly after takingoffice. Democratic Reps. Barney Frank and David Obey called him out onit in a letter to the White House complaining that they were"chagrined" that Mr. Obama was issuing signing statements.
Recently, the Obama administration admitted that after receiving theletter from Messrs. Frank and Obey, it stopped the practice. But thepresident still has aides examine each bill to identify provisions theadministration will disregard. It's just that Team Obama isn't tellingCongress which provisions it is ignoring. It's right for him to defendthe office of the presidency. The problem is that he is doing it in away that violates his own standards of transparency and accountability.
This hypocrisy has not gotten muchattention. But another act of duplicity has. During his campaign, Mr.Obama pledged that any negotiations on health-care legislation would bebroadcast on C-SPAN, "so the American people can see what the choicesare," and not conducted behind closed doors. "Such publicnegotiations," he said, were "the antidote" to "overcoming the specialinterests and the lobbyists who . . . will resist anything that we tryto do."
Internet publisher Andrew Breitbart collected videotape of Mr. Obamamaking the same promise eight different times in 2007 and 2008—evidencethat this was not a hasty or ill-considered pledge. It was supposed toepitomize the "change" that was at the core of the Obama campaign.
Now, however, the final negotiations on health-care reform are beingconducted behind closed doors and there's no formal legislativeconference between the House and Senate, which would guaranteeRepublicans at least a few seats at the table. This bill is not onlybeing written in secrecy, it is being written by an anonymous group ofDemocrats. We can therefore throw Mr. Obama's commitment tobipartisanship onto his mountain of broken promises.
Instead, he's practicing hardball politics, aiming for a health-carebill that gets just enough Democrats to jam it through Congress withlighting speed before the American people's justified anger gets evenhotter than it already is. This is dangerous, both for the countrywhich gets saddled with a lousy piece of legislation and for Democrats,who will bear sole responsibility for the bill's deep cuts in Medicare,rising insurance premiums, increased taxes, and decline in the qualityand availability of health care.
About Karl Rove
KarlRove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from2000–2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007. At the White Househe oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs,Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief ofStaff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy-making process.
BeforeKarl became known as "The Architect" of President Bush's 2000 and 2004campaigns, he was president of Karl Rove + Company, an Austin-basedpublic affairs firm that worked for Republican candidates, nonpartisancauses, and nonprofit groups. His clients included over 75 RepublicanU.S. Senate, Congressional and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states,as well as the Moderate Party of Sweden.
Karlwrites a weekly op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, is a Newsweekcolumnist and is the author of the forthcoming book "Courage andConsequence" (Threshold Editions).
Email the author atKarl@Rove.comor visit him on the web atRove.com. Or, you can send a Tweet to @karlrove.
Maybeit was naïve for Mr. Obama to make the C-SPAN promise. But it was hispledge to do business in a different way, and it likely helped him winover swing voters. Mr. Obama even talked this week about "changing theway Washington works." But we can see that Mr. Obama's preferred styleis backroom legislative drafting and what that styleproduces—sweetheart deals like Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson's "CornhuskerKickback" and dozens of other special-interest provisions that benefitone state or a group at the expense of good policy. Mr. Obama shouldinsist that every last payoff be removed from whatever bill is cobbledtogether.
This all plays into a broader narrative: Mr. Obama is not thecentrist or new-style bipartisan leader he presented himself to be. Onmany of the most basic issues raised in the campaign, and in describingthe kind of leadership he would practice, Mr. Obama misled voters.Americans will overlook a lot of things when it comes topoliticians—but being on the receiving end of a giant bait-and-switchgame isn't one of them.
Mr. Rove, the former senior adviser and deputy chief ofstaff to President George W. Bush, is the author of the forthcomingbook "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions).