It is a sad, sad state when one's ego overrides one's personal integrity...

... even to the point that one cares not that the entire world knows you are incapable of keeping even one promise...

... then... when one descends to the pitiful condition that even one's most faithful supporters are calling... FOUL!... well... this one has descended to a pitiful and self-demeaning place.

This is embarrassing for the president.

C-SPAN Challenges Congress to Open Health Care Talks to TV Coverage

The head of C-SPAN has implored Congress to open up the last leg of health care reform negotiations to the public... CEO Brian Lamb wrote to leaders in the House and Senate Dec. 30 urging them to open "all important negotiations, including any conference committee meetings," to televised coverage on his network.

"The C-SPAN networks will commit the necessary resources to covering all of the sessions LIVE and in their entirety," he wrote.

Congressional leaders, however, reportedly are expected to bypass the traditional conference committee process.... This format would seem ideal for closed-door meetings.... though President Obama pledged during the campaign to open up health care talks to C-SPAN's cameras.

"That's what I will do in bringing all parties together, not negotiating behind closed doors, but bringing all parties together, and broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are,"

Obama said at a debate against Hillary Clinton in Los Angeles on Jan. 31, 2008.

Asked about the request to Congress, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said he hadn't seen the letter.

"I know the president is going to begin discussions today on health care to iron out differences between the House and Senate bills," he said.

Lamb urged Congress in his letter to fling open the doors in the final stretch of the negotiations.

"President Obama, Senate and House leaders, many of your rank-and-file members, and the nation's editorial pages have all talked about the value of transparent discussions on reforming the nation's health care system," he wrote. "Now that the process moves to the critical stage of reconciliation between the chambers, we respectfully request that you allow the public full access, through television, to legislation that will affect the lives of every single American."

Caesar cried out, "Et Tu Brutus!" as his closest adviser raised the treasonous dagger of betrayal and death.

If one listens carefully one can hear in the above pleading from C-SPAN ... "Et Tu POTUS!"

Consider and ponder.

xtnyoda, shalomed