Lobbyist Rule

[Anonymous]

Well this did not take long.

President Obama: "The executive order on ethics I will sign shortly represents a clean break from business as usual. As of today, lobbyists will be subject to stricter limits than under any other administration in history. If you are a lobbyist entering my administration, you will not be able to work on matters you lobbied on, or in the agencies you lobbied during the previous two years. When you leave government, you will not be able to lobby my administration for as long as I am president."

That's what he said two days ago. But as we first told you Thursday, and sadly we are learning more about this Friday, President Obama already wants an exception to his own rule.

You see, what happened is, there is this former lobbyist for a big defense contractor called Raytheon. His name is William Lynn.

President Obama wants him to be deputy defense secretary. So, the Obama administration wants a waiver to its own rule.

[Anonymous]

I don't know whether this guy is worth the exception, but it seems to me that making a well-publicized exception here and there is better than having lobbyists running around as standard operating procedure. Compare this to the twenty-something Bush campaign workers who were given sensitive positions in Iraq and tell me that it's not a vast improvement, even if still less than totally ideal.

I admit, incidentally, that for someone who thinks as little of Bush as I do, it's not much of a compliment to Obama to say he's doing better than Bush. Please forgive us liberals our tendency to be over-enthusiastic about the sunshine after an eight-year night. I will try to remember to be grateful to you conservatives on this blog for being our metaphoric sunscreen.

[Anonymous]

All of the liberals on this board and the media alike love to spew the horrible 8 years with Bush. Here is a link to the Bush approval rating for all 8 years.

At what % point on this chart does Obama have to reach before we can start saying the sunshine has ended and we are back to the night.

Just curiuos.

http://www.hist.umn.edu/~ruggles/Approval.htm

[Anonymous]

45%, and then an upward trend would be nice.

It's nice if, the longer a person is in a job, the better they are perceived. The other way around, not so much.