Obama and the L-Word – Reason Magazine

Obama and the L-Word

The president’s habit of telling untruths

Matt Welch from the April 2010 issue

Here’s how predictable the president’s slippery relationship with the truth has become: Hours before the State of the Union address, Washington Examiner reporter Timothy P. Carney posted a “pre-emptive fact check” that, among other things, prebutted any presidential claim to have “stopped the revolving door between government and corporate lobbying.” As it happened, that night Barack Obama made an even bolder (read: less truthful) claim: that “we’ve excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs.”

In fact, more than 40 former lobbyists work in the administration, including such policy makers as Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn (who was lobbying for Raytheon as recently as 2008), Office of the First Lady Director of Policy and Projects Jocelyn Frye (National Partnership for Women and Families), White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Cecilia Muñoz (National Council of La Raza), and Treasury Secretary Chief of Staff Mark Patterson (Goldman Sachs).

When Carney confronted a White House spokeswoman with the falsehood, she conceded nothing. “As the President said,” she wrote, “we have turned away lobbyists for many, many positions.” Just not all of them.

via Obama and the L-Word – Reason Magazine.