Is this the Hope and Change voted for?

The answer, to those paying attention to things other than celebrity and the color of the Presiden't skin, is no:

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washingtopn Post has offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few": Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and — at first — even the paper’s own reporters and editors. 

The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff." 

With the newsroom in an uproar after POLITICO reported the solicitation, Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli said this morning that he was "appalled" by the plan and said the newsroom will not participate.

"It suggests that access to Washington Post journalists was available for purchase," Brauchli told The Post’s media reporter, Howard Kurtz. The proposal "promises we would suspend our usual skeptical questioning because it appears to offer, in exchange for sponsorships, the good name of The Washington Post."

Some might remember this... some would like to forget it:

In what ethics-in-government advocates described as a particularly far-reaching move, Mr. Obama barred officials of his administration from lobbying their former colleagues "for as long as I am president." He barred former lobbyists from working for agencies they had lobbied within the past two years and required them to recuse themselves from issues they had handled during that time.

I've said it before, I say it again.

Hope and change is code for smoke and mirrors.  You Obama supporters who continue to cling to H & C ought to seriously wake the hell up. 

Seriously.

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post has offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few": Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and — at first — even the paper’s own reporters and editors. 

The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff." 

With the newsroom in an uproar after POLITICO reported the solicitation, Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli said this morning that he was "appalled" by the plan and said the newsroom will not participate.

"It suggests that access to Washington Post journalists was available for purchase," Brauchli told The Post’s media reporter, Howard Kurtz. The proposal "promises we would suspend our usual skeptical questioning because it appears to offer, in exchange for sponsorships, the good name of The Washington Post."

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24441.html#ixzz0K7W37EHU&D

Comments

[cat007]

How is this Obama's fault? It would be easier to blame this on the republicans. It smells like Tom Delay and Karl Rove. This is whoring after money. That's what conservatives think life is all about. Where does Obama fit in?

[Mommynator]

Dear cat:

Proof?

We have evidence that Bill Clinton sold nights in the Lincoln Bedroom. Bush, no.

Where is the proof that any republican president ever sold access rights to anyone?

Until you come up with something substantial, maybe you ought to just lap up your daily talking points milk and take a nap.

[Mommynator]

Oh yes - try and address the ethics of what is now being done instead of trying to deflect.