Friday, November 21, 2008

Obama Appoints Lobbyist

Bob Robbins just forwarded this Newsmax article by Jim Myers.

"President-elect Barack Obama’s selection of former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle for Secretary of Health and Human Services raises questions about Obama honoring his vow not to employ lobbyists in his administration.

Newsmax reported earlier that in November 2007, candidate Obama said of lobbyists: “I don’t take a dime of their money, and when I am president, they won’t find a job in my White House.”

But since leaving the U.S. Senate following an election loss in 2004, Daschle has been a highly paid adviser to healthcare clients at the law and lobbying firm Alston & Bird.

Although Daschle is not a registered lobbyist, he “provides strategic advice to the firm’s clients about how to influence government policy or actions,” The New York Times reports.

Those clients include Abbott Laboratories and HealthSouth.

Stephanie Cutter, a spokeswoman for the Obama transitional office, said: “If [Daschle] is asked to serve in the Obama administration, he will represent the interests of the president-elect and not his former clients.”

Footnote: The former senator’s wife, Linda Hall Daschle, is one of Washington’s top lobbyists, working mostly on behalf of airline-related companies.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Obama Appoints Lobbyist" is the headline. Further in the article there is a comment that says:
"Although Daschle is not a registered lobbyist"....

Does Daschle not have First Amendment rights?

So your logic is that the exercise of First Amendment Rights by a person who is not a registered lobbyist "raises questions about Obama honoring his vow not to employ lobbyists in his administration."

Far fetched is it not?

Mitchell Langbert said...

Thanks for your comment. You're confused as to what the First Amendment says. It does not guarantee the right to be appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services. It merely guarantees rights concerning expression via speech, press and religion. Moreover, the point of the Newsmax article is NOT that it should be illegal for a lobbyist to serve as a cabinet Secretary. Merely, that Barack Obama has once again lied. It is a habit of his that the left seems to find charming, much as the left has lied about how many people Pol Pot, Castro, Stalin and Mao have murdered.