Actually, that’s what I took him to mean in the first place. I certainly didn’t think he meant that anyone who had publicly advocated for a group or a cause fit his description. To my ear, “lobbyist” pretty much means someone who strives to influence laws for the financial gain of their employer.
Done. That’s what I was wondering was whether that type of situation was an issure regardless of party.
He didn’t quite do this, but its already been pointed out upthread that during the campaign, when asked about this by reporters, he clarified (ahem) that the thrust of his comment was supposed to be that lobbyists won’t dominate his administration.
-FrL-
This is the “change” we were promised-NOT!:smack::smack:
That was an insightful and well thought out post. NOT! :smack::smack::smack:
On topic:
Bricker, I don’t see it as Obama not admitting he was wrong, I see it as Obama having realistic goals. So far as the majority of his rhetoric and the EO goes he appears to be doing an outstanding job. If he overstated things at one of the hundreds of campaign outings he certainly rectified that by later clarifying his position. I really see this as a non issue.
Nine days! How long, oh Lord, how long!?
Nearly all of what you say applies to unions as well - should we expect similar treatment of their lobbyists under the law?
Recall that when the corporate heads of the Big three lobbied Congress for bailout funds, the head of the UAW was right next to them.
An exclamation I hear frequently, though not in this particular context.
I’ll just link to this nifty site where the guys from politifact.com (a fact-checking site run by the St. Petersburg Times) are keeping track of about 500 campaign promises Obama made. They rate this one as a compromise, and might downgrade it to broken depending on the number of waivers.
Incidentally, they gave him his first broken promise earlier today, as he signed the Ledbetter Fair Trade Act (promise kept) without posting the text on the White House web page for comment for five days.
If what I said applies to them, then yes. It seems to me that unions are much more like the ACLU than like the oil lobby on the second factor at least. But if the other two are also true of unions, then I see no reason to treat unions differently.
It seems to me the problem is simply influence out of proportion to their numbers – this is why Obama the candidate contrasted lobbyists with “the people.”
I can’t say I’ve ever been upset with a politician who didn’t keep a particular promise that I didn’t think was a good idea in the first place. I mean, if Bush43 had promised to outlaw abortion completely, won the election, and then didn’t follow through - I can’t imagine i would have started a GD or Pit thread about it.
(not saying that happened, just an example)
Wow, that sure is fascinating.
An interesting site, although perhaps a little hard to take seriously - no. 34 mentions that Obama promised to enforce pay-as-you-go for the federal government.
It is difficult to understand how tripling the deficit in your first days as President counts as “no action” on this.
It seems to be emerging that he meant all the promises about spending money. He didn’t mean any of the ones about tax cuts or government reform. I will assume that he also meant the ones about raising taxes.
It might be interesting to run thru the list of all promises and identify the ones he didn’t mean, the ones he used to mean but doesn’t anymore, and the ones he should keep.
Regards,
Shodan
What a tedious, pathetic 8 years this will be.
No worse then the last 8.
Unless Obama manages to be worse than Bush (which would take a heckuva effort), that isn’t possible.
ETA: Referring to the complaining. The complaints about Bush at least usually weren’t so silly and desperate. Not that they wouldn’t have been if he wasn’t such a terrible President.
Disproportionate influence is the main problem, but I think the other two problems I identified are also important. And the degree of the problem also matters. Not everyone who pays fees to a union supports their lobbying goals. But a far greater percentage of people who buy gas oppose the lobbying efforts of the oil industry.
The point I was making was that there are rational, politically neutral reasons for targeting corporate lobbyists and caring less about others.
take a look:
-Leon panetta (CIA): WTF is Obama thinking??
If a candidate runs as a squeaky-clean outsider, and promises to govern as a squeaky-clean outsider, and then almost immediately breaks a promise to govern as a squeaky-clean outsider, it takes several shots of Flavor-aid before calling him on it sounds either silly or desperate.
YMMV. For those who expected Obama to get a pass on everything he does, it definitely will.
Regards,
Shodan