Reader TTS

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free _Mother Jones Daily_. This doesn’t strike me as very big news, but congressional Republicans

have apparently released copies of some emails that were exchanged between the White House and the pharmaceutical industry during negotiations over the healthcare reform bill. Here is Peter

Baker of the _New York Times_: > On June 3, 2009, one of the lobbyists e-mailed Nancy-Ann DeParle, > the president’s top health care adviser. Ms. DeParle sent a > message back 

reassuring the lobbyist. Although Mr. Obama was > overseas, she wrote, she and other top officials had “made > decision, based on how constructive you guys have been, to oppose > 

importation on the bill.” Just like that, Mr. Obama’s staff > abandoned his support for the reimportation of prescription > medicines at lower prices….  >  > “THERE WAS NO WAY WE

 HAD THE VOTES IN EITHER THE HOUSE OR THE > SENATE IF PHRMA WAS OPPOSED — PERIOD,” SAID A SENIOR DEMOCRATIC > OFFICIAL INVOLVED IN THE TALKS, referring to the Pharmaceutical > 

Research and Manufacturers of America, the drug industry trade > group. >  > Republicans see the deal as hypocritical. “He said it was going to > be the most open and honest and 

transparent administration ever and > lobbyists won’t be drafting the bills,” said Representative > Michael C. Burgess of Texas, one of the Republicans on the House > Energy and 

Commerce subcommittee that is examining the deal. “Then > when it came time, the door closed, the lobbyists came in and the > bills were written.” >  > Some of the liberals 

bothered by the deal-making in 2009 now find > the Republican criticism hard to take given the party’s > long-standing ties to the pharmaceutical industry. “Republicans > trumpeting

 these e-mails is like a fox complaining someone else > raided the chicken coop,” said Robert Reich, the former labor > secretary under President Bill Clinton. “SAD TO SAY, IT’S CALLED

> POLITICS IN AN ERA WHEN BIG CORPORATIONS HAVE AN EFFECTIVE VETO OVER > MAJOR LEGISLATION AFFECTING THEM AND WHEN THE G.O.P. IS USUALLY THE > BENEFICIARY.” This is all stuff we’ve

known for years, and the new emails don’t seem to add an awful lot other than a bit of detail. The spin the _Times_ puts on this is that it’s unusual because Obama had denounced Big Pharma

so strongly during the 2008 campaign, but this strikes me as painfully naive. Attacks like this are usually done precisely to get public opinion on your side and soften up your opponents so

they’ll be more likely to deal once you’re in office. As Baker writes of the negotiations themselves, “The White House depicted in the message traffic comes across as deeply involved in the

give-and-take, and not averse to pressure tactics, including having Mr. Obama publicly assail the industry unless it gave in on key points.” Right. And these are exactly the kind of hardball

tactics that most liberals think Obama should engage in more often. It is, if you like, Obama acting a bit like LBJ. Perhaps, if Republicans had been genuinely willing to cooperate on

healthcare and provide Obama with a few more votes, this sort of thing might not have been necessary. But they weren’t, so it was.