Fish Wrap Whines About John Boehner’s Ties To Lobbyists

11 Sep, 2010 by William Teach

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Now, this whole article would be considered an in-kind campaign contribution under the legislation Democrats want to pass. Well, it would if a blogger wrote it, since the Old Media would be pretty much excluded. Anyhow

House Democrats were preparing late last year for the first floor vote on the financial regulatory overhaul when Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio and other Republican leaders summoned more than 100 industry lobbyists and conservative political activists to Capitol Hill for a private strategy session.

The bill’s passage in the House already seemed inevitable. But Mr. Boehner and his deputies told the Wall Street lobbyists and trade association leaders that by teaming up, they could still perhaps block its final passage or at least water it down.

“We need you to get out there and speak up against this,” Mr. Boehner said that December afternoon, according to three people familiar with his remarks, while also warning against cutting side deals with Democrats.

That sort of alliance – they won a few skirmishes, though they lost the war on the regulatory bill – is business as usual for Mr. Boehner, the House minority leader and would-be speaker if Republicans win the House in November. He maintains especially tight ties with a circle of lobbyists and former aides representing some of the nation’s biggest businesses, including Goldman Sachs, Google, Citigroup, R. J. Reynolds, MillerCoors and UPS.

Now, there are good lobbyists and bad lobbyists. Regardless, they have a 1st Amendment Right to petition the government for redress of grievance (no, really, try reading the whole thing, Lefties.) I have said before, and I’ll say again, the problem is not the lobbyists, but the elected and appointed officials. Like these ones, totally forgotten by the NY Times

But in the previous 12 months, the Obama administration had hired at least 45 former lobbyists to policymaking jobs, including five Cabinet slots. A former lobbyist for the Swiss Bankers Association is the general counsel at the IRS, and a former Goldman lobbyist is chief of staff at the Treasury Department. Monsanto’s former chief lobbyist is the FDA’s deputy commissioner for foods. When Obama got rid of his ethics czar this summer, he transferred White House transparency duties to former lobbyist Bob Bauer.

And if you don’t like that little bit of reality from the Conservative Washington Examiner, you’ll hate this, from the massively neo-con Huffington Post

The week, President Obama announced that lobbyists wouldn’t be allowed in his administration and nominated a defense lobbyist to be deputy Secretary of Defense.

Obama announced that the revolving door between government and lobbying would be slammed shut — wait, can you slam a revolving door? — “for as long as I am president.” And broke the pledge while he was saying it.

And the list keeps going on and on. What say you about this, Fish Wrap? I won’t even go down the roads showing the effect lobbyists had on the Stimulus and health “care” bills, the un-passed Cap and Tax, plus the enormous number of visits from union officials of all stripes.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach. Re-Change 2010!