Lobbyists lobbyists everywhere, not a one for hire!

I lived in the Washington D.C. area for half of my lifetime, so far. One of the things I learned while there was that almost everyone who works in Washington is a lobbyist or has close ties to a lobbyist. After all, I did some contract librarian work for a lobbying firm in D.C. for a little while and ending up making some friends there. In addition, I attended a church in Washington, ironically the same one Bill Clinton attended, and ended up making friends there as well (you make really good friends at church, fyi, contrary to what Obama would have you believe). I grew up with people who ended up becoming lobbyists. I'd say I have very close ties with lobbyists and lobbying groups while I lived in the D.C. area. This is no longer true. I have remained friends with these people, don't get me wrong, but I can't say that I have close ties to lobbyists anymore since I no longer see any of these people on a regular basis. At any rate, this is why it was so funny that Obama would point out that seven of McCain's staff in his campaign were lobbyists. Well, McCain said he didn't want lobbyists to control Washington either, but this was portrayed by Obama as a lie, when in fact it isn't considering McCain has been true to that throughout his career, limiting lobbying through legislation and even limiting earmarks (used to be called pork) to his own state to avoid unnecessary entanglements with lobbyists. Obama grew up in the Chicago political machine, so he's always been in bed with lobbyists and he consistently worked to get earmarks for his state. Hmm... who is more in bed with lobbyists. Having a few working for you on your campaign is the reality of Washington, everyone there is, has been, or knows a lobbyist. Therefore, Obama also had lobbyists on his campaign staff. The fact the McCain failed to point this out is a failure of his campaign, but it remains true nonetheless. Well, it seems that some in the media may be waking up to the reality that is Obama (one can only "hope"). Campbell Brown's "no bias, no bull" article today (which is of course funny considering she's a journalist so there is always bias, but I digress) pointed out the difficulty that Obama is having keeping his pledge from a year ago that "[lobbyists] won't work in my White House". Yeah right, what planet does he live on? Anyway, he claims they have the most stringent rules of any President ever in hiring lobbyists. Maybe this is true, but hiring anyone in Washington amounts to hiring a lobbyist or someone with close ties to lobbyists, so his pledge of a year ago was impossible at the time and simply nothing more than an empty promise. Much like virtually everything else he's said. Of course, I'm worried he will actually try to enact some of those empty promises, but that's another story.