Obameter #234:5 Days Before Signing Bills

In 2008, Candidate Obama wanted to prevent bills from being rushed through Congress without people reading them (like the US PATRIOT Act), so he promised to allow five days for public comment and debate after Congress passed a bill before he would sign it. That way, everyone would have a chance to air their views and public oversight would rule the day. Why do birds suddenly appear...?

Okay, back in reality, this was a ridiculous and stupid promise to make. Most bills are debated for ridiculously too long in Congress before being passed. Are you really going to risk a precariously, meticulously constructed majority consensus that took months to build on the passing whims of a public tortured by sensationalist news reports and razor-sharp partisanship? Any bills passing faster than a dead snail are "emergency bills" which Obama's promise explicitly made exception for anyway. Even the US PATRIOT Act was touted as an emergency response to the 9/11 WTC bombing and, thus, would have been immune to Obama's promise.

Of course he didn't keep it. He shouldn't keep it. Anyone passingly familiar with politics should have realized it was an untenable, possibly irresponsible goal and no promise should ever have been made.

Unless he never intended to keep it. Then it was a work of evil genius. It makes him sound like a uniter, not a divider. It's the kind of promise that makes him sound like a champion of government transparency with his fingers on the pulse of mundane America. It's the kind of promise that makes him sound like a great moderate leader, aloof of the establishment but in touch with the people, until the inevitable failure to achieve it makes him look hypocritical and manipulative. Which, on this point, Obama clearly was.

In other news, video game programmers have decided that anytime they figure out a cool new technology they're going to post details online and wait five days for other developers to try to copy the new trick before publishing any game that uses it. And Duke Nukem Forever was released to rave reviews. Pre-order today by sending me money!