PrintMarch 11, 2009
Obama breaks his 'No Lobbyist' vow -- again
As the late President Ronald Reagan (R) would have said to President Barack Hussein Obama (D) over his latest broken promise "There you go again!"
Remember Obama's promise less than a year ago?
To rousing applause, Barack Obama formally announced this afternoon that the Democratic National Committee will follow his lead and begin refusing donations from registered lobbyists and special-interest political action committees.
"They do not fund my campaign," the presumptive Democratic nominee told a small-town southwest Virginia crowd, after delivering a standard refrain that blames drug and insurance interests for blocking universal health care. "They will not fund our party. And they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I'm President of the United States."
Well, as you may have heard Obama is President of the United States. And, no surprise, lobbyists funded his campaign and, with Obama's active help, they are drowning out the voices of the American people as Obama quickly packs his administration with lobbyists.
How does he do it? With a straight face--and a quick slight of hand--he rationalizes the lobbyist is absolutely, positively the best person for the job and is absolutely, positively indispensable. Unless, of course, the indispensable person has some embarrassing secret that the famed Obama vetters haven't discovered. The latest indispensable lobbyists , brought to the attention of the US by lobbying waivers, are Jocelyn Frye who will be director of policy and projects for Michelle Obama's office and Cecilia Munoz who will be director of intergovernmental affairs in the president's executive office.
And just who are these indispensable lobbyists for whom Obama broke his promise?
Munoz was a senior vice president for the National Council of La Raza, where she supervised all legislative and advocacy activities on the state and local levels. Munoz was heavily involved in the immigration battles in Congress in recent years, and is now a principal liaison to the Hispanic community for the administration.
Before joining the administration, Frye served as general counsel at the National Partnership for Women & Families, where she directed the group's workplace fairness program. The White House blog said Frye, an expert on employment law, had worked with federal agencies as a technical expert and had testified before Congress and the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission on federal enforcement of employment discrimination laws.
Ah, the picture becomes clear. They are so impressive that absolutely not one person in the US could even come close to these two, so Obama really, really had no other choice but to break his solemn vow about lobbyists. After all, that was then, this is now.
