Obama lobbyists ban bites back

R

RockX

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When is a ban on lobbyists in an administration not a ban on lobbyists in an administration? When you need a lobbyist who knows how the Pentagon works to help run the defense establishment.


That's the situation the new Obama Administration finds itself in. Obama nominated William J. Lynn III as his Deputy Defense Secretary in a role that would require Lynn to essentially be the chief operations officer in that mammoth bureaucracy.

But Lynn was among, other things, a lobbyist for Raytheon Co., one of the nation's largest defense contractors.



To not violate the new executive order the president signed yesterday, Lynn would require a waiver from the new administration.



That would seem to violate the spirit of Obama's ban, something which numerous people, are pointing out.




LOL

Looks like he might have to scratch that one.
 
ib1yysguy said:
Was he a lobbyist in the last two years? That's what the ban requires.
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"Obama's remarks evoked criticism from the Republican National Committee, which noted that Obama has nominated William J. Lynn III, a former Raytheon lobbyist, as deputy secretary of defense. Lobbying reports filed by Raytheon with the Senate states that Lynn was part of a group that lobbied Congress and the Pentagon in 2007 and 2008. White House officials did not respond to requests for comment. "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/21/AR2009012103472.html
 
Of course, the Obama camp recognized that reality is imperfect and thus included a waiver provision in the Executive Order to deal with precisely this sort of situation. That one individual requires actually using the waiver process, while imperfect, doesn't completely undermine the thrust of the Order, particularly as compared to Obama's predecessors.

I don't particularly like this appointment, but declaring that a single appointment requiring a waiver that is built into the order itself as undermining the lobbyist ban is just silly.
 
Epicurus said:
I mean gah he granted a way out of his promise within his promise, I don't see what you're mad about!
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The way I look at it is what is the baseline rule. Under Bush, the baseline rule was to hire lobbyists with some exceptions. This was the case at pretty much every department. Under Obama, the baseline rule is no lobbyists with a single exception.

As I said, I don't particularly like the appointment and I have no intention of defending it, but declaring that the whole lobbyist ban is shit because a single lobbyist was hired through a mechanism built into the lobbyist ban strikes me as silly. People can be mad about the appointment, and I can see why.

It also strikes me that the only people that have a right to be mad about it are the people that were mad about Bush's appointment of lobbyists, not the people that didn't give a shit about it then.
 
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