Matt Yglesias has a very good line of logic why the nominee for DepSecDef, William Lynn, ought to receive a waiver for his past lobbying activities with Raytheon.
I don’t have particular views on the merits of Lynn or Patterson, but I think the whole thing illustrates the lack of merits of this anti-lobbyist posturing. Among other things, the distinction between “lobbyists” and other forms of influence-peddlers is pretty irrelevant. I do worry about putting too much of our regulatory authority in the hands of people whose primary allegiance is to friends on Wall Street rather than to the public interest. But if instead of being a lobbyist for Goldman, Patterson had been some other kind of Goldman employee, that wouldn’t actually ease my concerns. Meanwhile, you do need some people in government who know the private sector world so it’s not possible to totally avoid these kinds of ties. Either way, the way you take on the entrenched interests of the wealthy and powerful is by taking on their interests not by promulgating ethics rules so tight that you immediately start searching for loopholes in them.
Just so - attack the issues, not the person's character. There are bad lobbyists, but not all lobbyists are bad. The staffers and appointees can't be experts on everything. Lobbyists allow congressional staffers and political appointees to get up-to-date and expert information on important public policy issues. We do need to watch how these few lobbyists-turned-appointees deal with issues, but they can be trusted. Hell, it's not like the last administration (or the one before that) didn't have its share of appointees with significant business connections. In the meantime, let's not handicap the Obama administration with draconian guidelines.
UPDATE: Matt Y explains more on the proper role of lobbyists.
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