Obama grudgingly admits that he broke his C-SPAN promise

During his address to Republican Congressmen last week, Obama wasn't willing to go as far, basically just admitting the first paragraph.

But Mr. Obama, answering a high school student's question about his administration's record on openness, stressed that most of the deliberations over the health care bills were in fact on television because they were negotiated in several congressional committees during open hearings. He also cited praise from an independent ethics watchdog group that has described his administration as the most open in recent history.

Speaking at a town hall in Nashua, N.H., Mr. Obama nevertheless acknowledged that he met repeatedly with Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill behind closed doors to discuss how to merge the House and Senate health bills, which take different approaches to several thorny issues. Doing so violated the letter and — according to some — the spirit of a pledge he made on the campaign trail to broadcast all the negotiations on C-SPAN. . . .