Two days after Barack Obama was sworn in as President The Washington Post published an article about the remarkably stringent rules against lobbyists and lobbying that President Obama imposed on his administration.

Obama was following up on a campaign pledge to have a new openness and purity in government that would exclude the influence of lobbyists and special interests.

That pledge and the integrity of those impressively stringent rules lasted, oooh, let’s see, January 22 to February 5 is 14 days. So those rules appear to have lasted two weeks as anything more than window dressing:

(Sorry, no transcript does that justice. You have to watch it.)

What you just witnessed is Jake Tapper asking Robert Gibbs, then the President’s press secretary, a very simple “housekeeping” question about the “waivers” to the lobbying rules that had been issued and really ought to be a matter of public record (if transparency truly is the name of the game) but are mysteriously unavailable. Robert Gibbs, sensing danger and not being able to toss a smoke grenade and run out of the room, tries a Jedi mind trick instead (“These are not the questions you want to ask,” or words to that effect). Problem is, Tapper is the Jedi in this one and Gibbs isn’t even a padawan. Evisceration ensues.

More recently Dana Milbank reports on another lobbyist who got a posh post in the administration, noting, however, that the gentleman in question didn’t technically violate the ban because he de-registered as a lobbyist and merely continued running the lobbyist firm for which he had been a lobbyist for a time before being hired into the administration. Milbank offers, dryly, “Only in today’s Washington could a president circumvent his own ban on hiring lobbyists by hiring the head of a lobbying firm.”

Har har. In fact, as Tim Carney of The Washington Examiner reports, the White House has hired at least 50 former registered federal lobbyists.

But this one beats all. While lobbyists have enjoyed easy access to the White House for a while now, administration officials, wishing to avoid having the name of their appointment appearing in the White House log book (which is a public record) have taken to meeting with lobbyists in a coffee shop across the street. Pretty much the epitome of non-transparency.

As for the pledge not to accept money from lobbyists, how technical do you want to get? Carney has been dogged in mapping the stream of filthy lobbyist cash running into the Obama campaign.

I’ll highlight two of his articles. In this one from October 2011 Carney goes down a list of state-level lobbyists, recently former lobbyists, spouses of lobbyists, and heads of lobbying firms from whom Obama has accepted cash.

And this one from March of this year in which Carney lays out the Orwellian rhetorical devices Obama and his people use to keep themselves pure as the driven snow (in their own minds, anyhow). Carney writes:

So, by the common understanding of the word lobbyist, Obama and Messina are certainly accepting lobbyist donations. But instead of using the word the way most people understand it, Obama and his team, as is their style, use the word in a misleading way that allows them to paint themselves in a flattering light. They decide that you are only a lobbyist if you register to lobby the federal government under the Lobbying Disclosure Act. Since the Obama administration hasn’t visibly enforced the LDA’s registration requirements, this is a nearly meaningless definition of lobbyist.

As Carney says in another article exposing Obama’s coordination with lobbyist money, “This doesn’t make Obama any different from other politicians — but it sure makes him different from what he promised to be.”

And that’s the point. Barack Obama is not the change anyone hoped he would be.
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Next part: $3 trillion in 8 years is less than $5 trillion in 3.5 years.

Next part: No new taxes on the middle class! [Some items that crossed my path today made this topic more compelling for the moment.]

This was a pretty good ad back in 2008.

Transcript:

This is the gas lines of the seventies. Democrats and Republicans have talked about energy independence, but nothing’s changed. Now Exxon’s making $40 billion a year, and we’re paying $3.50 for gas. I’m Barack Obama. I don’t take money from oil companies or Washington lobbyists, and I won’t let them block change anymore. They’ll pay a penalty on windfall profits. We’ll invest in alternative energy, create jobs, and free ourselves from foreign oil. I approve this message because it’s time Washington worked for you, not for them.

So how did he fare? Well, a gallon of gas now averages around $3.80. That’s not an improvement.

Note also that here in 2012, though the price of gas is higher, we’re no longer hearing about greedy oil companies and “windfall profits” any longer. It may be because as of May of this year Barack Obama had received $772,000 in donations from oil industry executives. Don’t want to bite a hand that’s feeding you.

How ’bout the “investing in alternative energy” goal? Well he certainly did that, but if Solyndra, et al., are his idea of good investments he ought to let someone else handle his investments once he’s a private citizen once again. More than $34 billion lost is not a good record, especially when it’s not even your money that you’ve lost but it’s money taxed away from hard working Americans.

And lastly, “free ourselves from foreign oil”? Considering we’re not going to stop needing oil any time soon we’ll have to get the oil from someplace. So the late-term abortion administered to the Keystone XL pipeline, the unnecessary moratoria on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, and the hostility from the EPA toward new drilling and refinery development certainly puts the lie to the notion that he’s committed to ending our dependence on foreign oil.

Overall, this is not the hope and change you were looking for.

Next part: “No lobbyists in my administration”

“You can’t change Washington from the inside.”

Really?

Why then, in heaven’s name, is he running for reelection?

Is he looking to remain part of the problem? Is he looking to maintain the status quo? The rancor? The unfettered racking up of debt? The disaster of a foreign policy? The demagoguery? The “us vs. them,” “I won.” rhetoric?

Even if you are the sort who truly believes the Republicans are entirely and solely to blame, his own admission ought to inspire you to demand he get out of Washington so he can truly CHANGE it from the outside!

"Really, my biggest failure is not getting my handicap below 10, but it isn't for lack of trying! Maybe I can change that, along with Washington from 'the outside.'"

Seems that by his own admission, if he is still intent to CHANGE Washington, he should resign or actively work to lose the election so that he is no longer the most inside of the insiders of Washington.

I mean, it’s logical, isn’t it?

(Also important: He plays to the audience by saying failure to pass immigration reform is his biggest failure. Not increasing the debt to $16 trillion, nor presiding over the most anemic recovery since the Great Depression. Not seeing the percentage of the American population actively taking part in the job market dwindle to 63.5% (the lowest since 1981—remember who was President from January ’77 through January ’81?). Not alienating historic allies and making us weaker around the world. Not presiding over the first ever credit downgrade of the United States. Not inspiring and signing the largest tax increase in history. No, his biggest failure was failing to pass immigration reform.)

Roll the tape:

*A (hopefully) helpful paraphrase.