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During the campaign, candidate Obama promised that he would close the “revolving door” between the administration and lobbying firms:

First, we will close the revolving door that has allowed people to use their Administration job as a stepping stone to further their lobbying careers.

It appears, however, that the revolving door is being used without any trouble.  Politico’s “Morning Money” reports today that Damon Munchus, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Banking and Finance in the Treasury’s Office of Legislative affairs and former member of the Obama-Biden transition team,  is leaving the Treasury to go a lobbying and consulting firm. 

Obama promised to crack down on the influence lobbyists have in Washington, but as we pointed out before, that has hardly happened.  In fact, MSNBC’s Dylan Rattigan declared 2009 to be “the year of the lobbyist.”  With the “revolving door” in full use, it looks like 2010 may be “the year of the lobbyist part II.”

One wonders if Munchus’ eagerness to ... more

On CNN’s “State of the Union” yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) tried to ridiculously lower the bar for bipartisanship, saying “The bill can be bipartisan, even though the votes might not be bipartisan.” Watch below.

Democrats have unsuccessfully pushed this notion before, when White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said “"The test of bipartisanship is not just how many Republican votes you have." Dems are doing this because they’re so desperate to spread the blame for their horribly unpopular health care bill. How unpopular is it? So bad that three in four Americans want Congress to either scrap the bill and start over or just stop outright. Now that’s real bipartisanship.