Yes, Ms. Brown has the basic facts right; the Obama Administration wants another waiver to hire an ex-lobbyist. These are the same ex-lobbyists they declared to be evil and said they wouldn't hire.

Yes, she has a point that if the Administration thinks a bunch of ex-lobbyists are the best people for the job, they should do something other than making a sweeping rule announcement that "lobbyists are teh ev1l."

Yes, I would much prefer that they would stick to hiring people who are NOT ex-lobbyists, given that rule, and given the fact that lobbying has gotten WAY out of hand.

No, she's dead wrong about the most important point; there are NOT tons of ex-lobbyists parading around all over the Obama Administration, and there are not likely to be.

There are exactly two. Two out of several hundred staffers.

Compared to the record of even the BEST of previous administrations, which as far as I know doesn't even come close to having that few, it's still leaps and bounds and revolutions away from "business as usual".

I'm willing to suspend my disbelief about ex-lobbyists being the best ones for the job if it's only two that they ask for.

If they ask for many more, or end up hiring ex-lobbyists without waivers, then things will start to stink heavily and I will stop trusting the Administration until and unless it re-earns it.

However, back to my original point, it's obvious that Campbell Brown has jumped the shark and become another "controversy at all costs" entertainer. You don't write something declaring a President's "hypocrisy" when his Administration is ANNOUNCING what they're going to do, because it's against their own policy, and they want the people to know.

Hypocrisy would be hiding it just like previous administrations.