Via Hot Air:

An exception, or the rule?

Do you recall that moment of Hope and ChangeTM when Barack Obama barred lobbyists from the federal government by executive order? By golly, Obama would clean up government and keep lobbyists out of policy-making positions, or else … he wouldn’t. For the second time in the eight days since signing the order, the Obama administration has plucked a lobbyist and put him in charge of the policy on which he’d lobbied:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner picked a former Goldman Sachs lobbyist as a top aide Tuesday, the same day he announced rules aimed at reducing the role of lobbyists in agency decisions.

Mark Patterson will serve as Geithner’s chief of staff at Treasury, which oversees the government’s $700 billion financial bailout program. Goldman Sachs received $10 billion of that money.