Candidate flip, president flop

Salon.com ^ | Dec 18, 2009 | David Sirota

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Obama crushes a medication policy he'd vowed to endorse. Such bogus election-year promises undermine democracy.

Every now and then, an insider inadvertently exposes the hideous rationalizations that run the American political grotesquerie. The best known of these statements are memorialized on TV as "gaffes." But the ones that never become famous tend to reveal the ugliest assumptions of all.

Case in point is the comment the pharmaceutical industry recently let fly in the Washington Post. The newspaper this week examined how the Obama administration crushed legislation that would have allowed Americans to purchase lower-priced FDA-approved medicines from abroad -- legislation that President Obama promised to support as a presidential candidate; legislation that would have reduced drug profiteering and saved the government and consumers $100 billion.

"It's about being a candidate as opposed to being president," said the drug industry's top lobbyist in defense of Obama's flip-flop.

"It's about being a candidate as opposed to being president," said the...

(snip)

It's a canard, of course -- one sculpted to excuse selling out. And there are two huge problems with it.

First, ignoring presidents' broken promises defiles our republican democracy. In America, we only get to choose presidents every four years, meaning we must rely on campaign promises as metrics for electoral choices. But if the entire idea of the campaign promise becomes an assumed joke, then we have no metrics by which to elect leaders.

Second, an obvious but taboo truth: There are almost no substantive reasons candidates cannot champion their election-year promises once in office. These pledges are made through deliberative processes. Candidates shouldn't make them if they're not serious about follow-through -- and it's not unreasonable to ask officeholders to at least try to honor the campaign commitments that informed voters' electoral decisions.

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we must rely on campaign promises as metrics for electoral choices

Cudos to the author for finally realizing Obama is a liar but, the author must still be wet behind the ears! Who believes campaign promises???

Proper metrics to quantify a politician are past legislative and/or business accomplishments, professional and familial associations, character, and character of associates.

[padre35]

The loons are discovering what we knew all along:

The Emperor has no Clothes!!!

[unkus]

“grotesquerie” Using that word is a good sign.

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bttt