Obama-- OK With The Evil Lobbyists Now?

I was head over heals about Barack Obama in 2003 when he was an Illinois state Senator and I helped put on one of his first Los Angeles fundraisers when he ran for the U.S. Senate. He was in 4th place in the Democratic primary when I wrote my first check to his campaign. When I heard him speak in person, I wrote a bigger check. And then he was elected to the Senate. By the time he ran for president, I knew he wasn't what I thought he was. I had watched him carefully in the Senate and I didn't vote for him in the 2008 primary. I did vote for him against McCain-- my last vote ever for the lesser of two evils. In 2012, I voted for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for president.

I still find myself rooting for Obama and being sympathetic to his plight. I don't hate him. I just see him as an OK president-- unlike, say, a truly horrible president like Bush or Reagan-- but I want a great president… just one before I die. My friend John was promised an amphitheater; I was promised a great president.

One of the things that Obama did when he first came into office was the very laudable effort of chasing the money changers from the Temple lobbyists from the executive branch. Well… those regulations had so many holes from the git-go that he's just basically scrapping the whole effort now. And by lobbyists I mean excrement dressed up in fancy suits like these two.

President Barack Obama is loosening restrictions on lobbyists who want to serve on federal advisory boards, a White House official said on Tuesday, a setback to the president's efforts to tamp down special interest influence in Washington.

Obama came to office pledging to curtail the sway of lobbyists and banned lobbyists from serving on such panels, which guide government policy on a range of topics ranging from cancer to towing safety.

The president said he was doing so because the voices of paid representatives of interest groups were drowning out the views of ordinary citizens.

But many lobbyists felt they were being unfairly tarred by Obama's campaign to keep them out of public service. A lawsuit challenging the ban was initially dismissed, but a District of Columbia Circuit Court in January reinstated it.

A spokeswoman for the White House Office of Management and Budget said the administration was revising its earlier guidance on lobbyists serving on federal advisory panels to clarify that lobbyists may now serve on such panels when they are representing the views of a particular group.

There are more than 1,000 federal advisory committees.

I'm told Hoyer said he would hold his breath 'til he died if Obama wasn't nicer to lobbyists. Hoyer loves those "fancy jets." And, let's face it, Hoyer would just be another lump on a backbench if it wasn't for all the money he gets from lobbyists to build his power inside the House Democratic caucus.