Changing the Lobby

Some stodgy skeptics said that we wouldn't really get "change" with Obama in charge. How wrong they were!

In old-time politics, industry experts who had experience advising legislators on crafting public policy were invited to join a new administration. After years of relatively low-paying public service, they then moved back to industry or to lobbying firms where they could utilize their understanding of the political process to benefit their employers.

In the new-and-improved politics of the most ethical administration in the history of the world, things are different. In fact, the system has been turned on its head. Obama's campaign aides aren't selfishly going into public service positions first. No! Instead, they are generously moving straight to the cash troughs at K Street firms before being tainted by service to the common good.

If a complete reversal isn't change, then nothing is!

The more entrenched, ideological skeptics point out that lots of ex-lobbyists joined, or tried to join, the new administration. "Just business as usual", they scoff. But the president is getting a bum wrap. Of those merely dozen-or-so exceptions that Obama has granted to his ethical standards, it is a blatant lie to include poor Sen. Tom Daschle. Daschle might have come from a powerful legal/lobbying firm (and duly returned there with tail between his legs), but he is not a lobbyist. Okay, he's not a lawyer, either, but he's not a lobbyist. Lobbyists have to be registered; he is not. He merely "advis[es] the firm’s clients on issues related to all aspects of public policy". Sure, he makes a fat-cat-lobbyist-like salary for his efforts, but he is not a lobbyist.

These attacks on the President are being waged by a bunch of non-believing, unpatriotic ideologues who can't get it through their Neanderthal heads that Obama won. Don't pay attention to them.