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White House Set a Trap for Boehner but Snared the Entire Democratic Leadership.

Jimmie | September 13, 2010 | Comments (2)

If the room full of Political Sooper Geniuses running the White House Message Machine got any smarter, it would suddenly burst into a blazing white light as the combined brainpower of those assembled therein transcended the mortal plane and became a hyper-intelligent gestalt being of pure intellect incapable of co-existing with mere humanity.

The Message of the Week concocted by these assembled mighty brains is that John Boehner has “lobbyist friends”. Shocking, no? Robert Gibbs, the guy who holds a daily flop-sweat master class for the press, launched a couple rhetorical missiles at House Minority Leader John Boehner for being “tightly bound to lobbyists” as if the notion that a Washington politician having truck with lobbyists is somehow a major revelation. Unfortunately, the message machine left part of the message behind. See, John Boehner isn’t the only Washington politician who gets campaign contributions from lobbyists. In fact, he’s not even one of the top recipients of lobbyist cash.

Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner, always a helpful guy, found a few other places where we might find lobbyists in government. Unfortunately for the President and his pals in the Democratic majority, his revelations diluted their clever attack on Boehner.

Obama and his underlings have named at least 50 ex-lobbyists to senior administration officials. Some highlights of the Obama Lobbyist Lineup:
Four cabinet-level officials are ex-lobbyists (Panetta, Sebelius, Harkin, & Holder)
The IRS general counsel is a former lobbyist for the Swiss Bankers Association
Mark Patterson, former Goldman Sachs lobbyist, is chief of staff at Treasury, and he never received a waiver.
Obama’s top food safety guy (Michael Taylor) is a Monsanto lobbyist, and his top agriculture trade guy (Isi Siddiqui) is an agri-chem lobbyist.
Joe Biden’s chief of staff and deputy chief of staff are both former corporate lobbyists with clients including oil companies and Fannie Mae.

And that doesn’t include the Brothers Podesta or the breathtakingly hypocritical deal the White House struck with the drug industry to get Obamacare passed.

And it appears that John Boehner isn’t even the preferred target for big lobbyist contributions.

[F]rom 1999 until today, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, Boehner has raised $299,490 from lobbyists.
For comparison, Harry Reid, Blanche Lincoln, and Chuck Schumer have each raised more money from lobbyists in this cycle alone.
This election cycle, Boehner is not even in the top 20 recipients of lobbyist cash. He’s raised less than $40,000 from lobbyists this cycle — compared to Nancy Pelosi’s $71,000 from lobbyists.

And look who tops this list this election cycle: Nancy Pelosi’s Number Two, Steny Hoyer*.

I sure am glad that Gibbs and the Times decided to draw our attention to the potentially corrupting influence of lobbyist money. I’m sure they’ll get right on cleaning up their own filthy house right away. You know, to set a good example for John Boehner.

*Lucky for us there’s a guy running against Hoyer who isn’t in the clutches of the lobbyists the Democrats say they so very much hate even though they take gobs and gobs of money from them. His name is Charles Lollar and you might like what you see when you check him out.

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