Obamarex

Remember all that stuff about "Change you can believe in"?
Well you can believe it.......

Remember all that stuff I said about all the lobbyists on McCain's campaign staff?  You can believe that we changed that. Now they're on my transition staff.  There's a big difference....words mean something.  Remember I'm a lawyer.....I know exactly what words mean....

Obama team pledges open transition to White House

TRANSITION | Despite anti-lobbyist talk in campaign, they are not out of the loop

November 12, 2008

BY LYNN SWEET Sun-Times Columnist

WASHINGTON -- President-elect Barack Obama's transition co-chairman John Podesta pledged Tuesday "to make this the most open and transparent transition in history." Meanwhile, let's see if the Obama team provides more than the legal minimum when it comes to details on how private money is being raised to help bankroll the transition operation.
"Under President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden, the American people will see a transition of government that is efficient, that is organized, that is bipartisan and more open and transparent than others before," Podesta told reporters at a briefing.

And if by chance you thought that Obama's anti-federal lobbyist drive -- a centerpiece of his campaign -- would mean that federal lobbyists would not work in his transition or White House, then you have not been listening to Obama's carefully worded campaign promises on the subject. Federal lobbyists are welcome -- it would be hard to staff a transition without them, they usually know a lot -- there are just restrictions on what they can work on. Podesta unveiled ethics guidelines covering federal lobbyists who work for the Obama administration. In addition to federal lobbyists not being able to contribute to the transition, they can't lobby while working on the transition. If a person working on the transition has lobbied in the past 12 months, they can't work on the issues they lobbied.