Directly Related To The Last Post

I just spotted this item. You know that promise from Nancy Pelosi to conduct "the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history"? Well, it seems that the Speaker has rejected C-SPAN's request to change the rules governing cameras in the House chamber.

So Brian Lamb, the head of C-Span, which got the electronic eye into the House and Senate in the first place nearly three decades ago, thought this would be a great opportunity to improve coverage. (The GOP turned him down in 1985.)

He wrote Pelosi asking for more cameras, saying the current system "does a disservice to the institution and to the public." For example, the fixed camera means "you can never get a reaction shot" during a debate, he told us, so it "takes out of the experience any soul" or sense of the give-and-take.

Not so, Pelosi said in a Dec. 22 letter to Lamb. "I believe the dignity and decorum of the United States House of Representatives are best preserved by maintaining the current system of televised proceedings," she wrote.

This is another blown opportunity to prove things would actually be one bit different. It is not looking so good right off the mark.