Obama Breaks New Rule for Raytheon Lobbyist

[El Nino]

This is becoming too easy

[chefmike]

Big fucking deal.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters on Jan. 22 that he pushed for Lynn's hiring and the waiver it required. "I asked that an exception be made because I felt that he could play the role of the deputy in a better manner than anybody else that I saw," Gates said. The next day, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said Lynn would be getting one of a "very limited number of waivers" so he could assume the Pentagon post despite being a registered lobbyist for Raytheon from 2003 to mid-2008.

Lynn's defenders say it's wrong to paint all lobbyists as evil. He has "precisely the kinds of skills required," says William Cohen, who served as Lynn's boss when Cohen ran the Pentagon during President Clinton's second term. "The fact that he lobbied for a defense contractor should not lead anyone to conclude that he is now rendered incapable of exercising his duties with complete fidelity to Secretary Gates or President Obama."

John Hamre, who was Cohen's deputy at the Pentagon, says Lynn "didn't do lobbying on a day-to-day basis" and is being unfairly lumped in with "bottom feeders" who have given lobbying a bad reputation. "Representing the interests of American citizens in Washington is a necessary attribute of our democracy," Hamre adds. "People are conflating 'lobbying' with unethical behavior, and that is unfair." Of course, when one of those people is the President, the argument tends to carry more weight.

Lynn, Obama's choice to serve as the Pentagon's No. 2 civilian, got high marks for struggling to bring some accountability to Pentagon spending when he served as its top money manager from 1997 to 2001. By one account, he reduced the amount of undocumented Pentagon spending from $2.3 trillion to $1.3 trillion (before the federal banking bailout, only at the Pentagon could $1.3 trillion in undocumented spending be deemed progress).

http://www.time.com/time/politics/ar...874165,00.html

[El Nino]

Double Standards, by Chefmike

[thx1138]

Lynn must be waterboarded to find out what his stance on torture is.