George W. Bush's chief advisor, Karl Rove, was on Gretta Van Sustrin last Friday night and he was asked the following question by Gretta (paraphrasing here):
"President Obama said he wanted everything in his administration to be transparent -- out in the open. This doesn't seem to be the case even though Obama said it would."
Rove said, "Well, it's not the case."
Gretta: "Yet there have been a lot of Presidents, including Bush, who said one thing on the campaign trail and did another while President."
Rove: "That's quite often the case."
Gretta: "You think it was a rookie talking."
Rove: "Yeah. I think that there are a lot of things that cannot be transparent. You need to have some things behind closed doors."
Gretta: "Like this healthcare bill. There has been promised transparency here, and yet so much has been going on behind closed doors. Who is responsible for no republican being in on this bill? Who is responsible for some Senators getting bought out? If you want to word it that way?"
Rove: "You have to have some things behind closed doors. If you didn't, if the Camera were on Senators all the time, they wouldn't agree to some of the things they do."
Gretta: "So you need to do things behind closed doors?"
Rove: "Yes. I do think that's something that will always have to happen in Washington. It's these behind closed door meetings that result the deals are made to get votes to get a bill passed. We did it to get some of our bills passed, and so is Obama."
I have to say I disagree with Rove here. I think that if those behind the door deals are only made because the Senators were behind closed doors, then perhaps those laws never needed to become laws. As I always say, no law is better than a stupid law.
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