Matt Yglesias

27 Responses to “Obama Administration Cracking Down on Human Rights Lobbyists”

1. strasmangelo jones Says:
   February 24th, 2009 at 2:50 pm

   Maybe it’s just that neither Clinton nor Obama are much fans of human rights.

2. Nate Says:
   February 24th, 2009 at 2:58 pm

   Or maybe “human rights” doesn’t have a universal definition and some of what HRC lobbies for is actually fairly controversial and therefore the anti-lobbying rules should still apply?

3. The Foulness Says:
   February 24th, 2009 at 2:59 pm

   Or maybe Obama actually believes what he says about “no lobbyists,” and understands that making more exceptions will just weaken his administration.

   Yes, some good folks will be left out now, but in the future, they will understand that you either work for the government or lobby the government, and not both.

4. anon Says:
   February 24th, 2009 at 3:01 pm

   Tom Malinowski was prevented from serving on the transition for precisely this reason. No waiver was offered or even thought possible at the time. It’s a shame because he is an incredibly bright guy. The only thing that might help is if bloggers like you bring it to the attention of a wider audience.

5. DGW Says:
   February 24th, 2009 at 3:06 pm

   It is likely very true. Many environmental group staff are blocked from EPA positions for the same reason. Lobbyist is defined as the legal definition–someone who is paid to influence congress for more than 20% of his time, broadly construed (includes preparing to lobby, drafting documents, etc., not just actually face time).

   Obviously, if the base concern is corporate money, then this seems absurd. However, for the lawyers in charge of defining the policy, it is a difficult line to draw if you stray from the legal definition and it will allow people to say “Oh, you only hire the lobbyists if you like their issues”.

   Of course, the “Daschle” exception is also absurd. If you are a big enough deal then you don’t have to register b/c you just sit around strategizing (although maybe you should register) or if you are just a rainmaker for investment funds, then you are not a lobbyist and can go to the administration.

   Its a standard problem in regulation–defining what you want to eliminate. Seems easy in a policy debate, but often much harder when it comes to writing the regs to not be overinclusive and underinclusive (which this rule is at the same time).

6. Myles Says:
   February 24th, 2009 at 3:13 pm

   It’s pretty easy to talk about some do-gooder enviro groups, but what about say, some Christian fundamentalist administration under a GOP government? That should have equal standing with human rights groups as both are non-profit NGO’s.

   And a lobbyist is a lobbyist, simple as that. He is paid to advance a particular issue, and that clouds his judgment in government, whether its corporate or human rights issues.

   Don’t see why there should be an exemption.

7. Steve LaBonne Says:
   February 24th, 2009 at 3:19 pm

   Silly people, of course waivers are only given to CORPORATE lobbyists. What, you actually thought this was change you could believe in?

8. strasmangelo jones Says:
   February 24th, 2009 at 3:26 pm

   Or maybe Obama actually believes what he says about “no lobbyists,”

   Except when the lobbyists in question work for Raytheon.

9. strasmangelo jones Says:
   February 24th, 2009 at 3:32 pm

   And a lobbyist is a lobbyist, simple as that.

   Except that Obama’s happy to let lobbyists for arms dealers work for the Pentagon, while he’s not so happy about letting lobbyists for human rights groups work for the State Department’s human rights bureau. Hmmmmm! It’s almost as if the common thread here was not a common hostility to lobbyists, but coziness with corporate warmongering and indifference to human rights.

10. Ryan Says:
    February 24th, 2009 at 3:34 pm

    Exactly, Steve and stras. Arguments like those from The Foulness, DTM, and Myles (”Don’t see why there should be an exemption”) ignore the fact that there has ALREADY been an exception, namely Bill Lynn. You can’t pretend Obama’s standing on some firm principle here — he compromised on it right out of the gate.

    Clearly there is no rule; there’s just a made-up rationale for excluding certain individuals masquerading as a rule.

11. strasmangelo jones Says:
    February 24th, 2009 at 3:35 pm

    Speaking of indifference to human rights:

    Less than a month after signing an executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, President Barack Obama has quietly agreed to keep denying the right to trial to hundreds more terror suspects held at a makeshift camp in Afghanistan that human rights lawyers have dubbed “Obama’s Guantanamo.”

    In a single-sentence answer filed with a Washington court, the administration dashed hopes that it would immediately rip up Bush-era policies that have kept more than 600 prisoners in legal limbo and in rudimentary conditions at the Bagram air base, north of Kabul.

    Now, human rights groups say they are becoming increasingly concerned that the use of extra-judicial methods in Afghanistan could be extended rather than curtailed under the new U.S. administration. The air base is about to undergo a $60 million expansion that will double its size, meaning it can house five times as many prisoners as remain at Guantanamo.

12. Brien Jackson Says:
    February 24th, 2009 at 3:37 pm

    “Yes, some good folks will be left out now, but in the future, they will understand that you either work for the government or lobby the government, and not both.”

    I’m at a loss that anyone can’t see how utterly stupid that is.

13. Rich in PA Says:
    February 24th, 2009 at 3:44 pm

    This is a big country, and there are no indispensable people. I’m happy to sacrifice this guy to a larger principle, if the principle is really applied consistently. Given a do-over, however, maybe Obama should have defined lobbying in a more pecuniary-interest sense that excludes some kinds of advocacy. The Right would have raised a stink, but it would have been a teachable moment about venal vs. non-venal advocacy.

14. strasmangelo jones Says:
    February 24th, 2009 at 3:51 pm

    I wasn’t happy with Lynn’s waiver either

    But Obama was, and that’s the point. Obama gets to decide when the rule applies and when it doesn’t, and so far it applies to human rights lobbyists who might care a bit too much about locking people up in US-sponsored dungeons, and not to arms dealers who lobby the Pentagon one day and work for the Pentagon the next.

15. onceler Says:
    February 24th, 2009 at 3:57 pm

    wait, so we can exempt people like Geithner and some missile-happy dude from Lockheed Martin, but THIS GUY has to go?

    come on, Obama admin. try harder. this is just silly.

16. anon Says:
    February 24th, 2009 at 4:00 pm

    Just to clarify, Tom was excluded before Lynn’s waiver was offered. The question is whether that waiver means that his case will be revisited.

17. anon Says:
    February 24th, 2009 at 4:01 pm

    Well, I guess when you go from lobbying for Raytheon to being the Deputy Secretary of Defense, not everything you do has to do with Raytheon. But if you go from lobbying for human rights to being Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Affairs, everything you do will have something to do with human rights, so there’s a more problematic conflict of interest in that sense.

18. Ryan Says:
    February 24th, 2009 at 4:12 pm

    Right, stras. You can’t dignify this thing by calling it a “rule”. He broke it within, like, three days of announcing it, for an individual whom he has never even bothered to argue was indispensable.

    It’s obviously not something he believes in very strongly. The Lynn case shows the bar for waiving the ‘rule’ is very low, which means if he *refuses* to waive it, it’s because he doesn’t actually want the person, for reasons that have nothing to do with the ‘rule’.

    Or, to be slightly more charitable, maybe he would like to hire a human rights lobbyist, but he places more value on having a reputatation for excluding lobbyists, and calculates that the MSM will give him the occasional mulligan if the issue is Pentagon procurement, but not human rights. In which case he’s probably right. Defense doesn’t count when it comes to fiscal restraint or pretty much any other principle the MSM likes to pay homage to.

19. Steve LaBonne Says:
    February 24th, 2009 at 4:12 pm

    come on, Obama admin. try harder. this is just silly.

    One might also say, come on, Obama DEFENDERS, try harder, this is just silly. For values of “this” that include all the excuses attempted thus far.

20. Kolohe Says:
    February 24th, 2009 at 4:41 pm

    The most impressed I ever was with Hillary Clinton is when she defended lobbyists in one of the early primary debates.

21. Steve Sailer Says:
    February 24th, 2009 at 5:26 pm

    Right. It’s perfectly simple: the rules aren’t supposed to apply to good people, just to bad people.

22. no comment Says:
    February 25th, 2009 at 11:18 am

    If you just waive the rule for everyone you want to hire you don’t have a rule at all. This is why I’m proud of Matt for the independence of thought he displayed in taking a firm stand against this policy during the campaign.

    Oh, wait . . .

23. سادية Says:
    March 16th, 2009 at 7:28 pm

    sry i just know how to write my name in arabic ) anyway however my english not that good but i think i get the point. thanks