Global Pulse Blog

This CNN article is from a week ago, and strangely appropriate to this blog. It deals with president Obama’s pledge to not include employ lobbyists to an agency they may have lobbied. Given the current economic crisis, some folks think this is is the right thing to do. Some obvious examples include Wall Street lobbyists working at the Treasury department, and defense contractors working at the Pentagon. However, it may not be the best choice in all cases:

Consider Tom Malinowski. He’s the advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, an expert on genocide and torture. But when it came time for a top human rights job at the State Department, he was turned away.

Why? “Because he lobbied against torture,” says one incredulous administration official. “It’s crazy.”

But the rules are the rules: The ethics code requires that no lobbyist can be hired to work for an agency he may have lobbied.

So, just to clarify: Someone like Malinowski who lobbied against torture and is a widely acknowledged expert on international human rights law is, er, blackballed. More to the point, he was shown the door precisely because he tried to influence Congress on an issue that both he and the administration agree, and care deeply about. (Malinowski won’t comment.)

I think president Obama’s original intent was to avoid conflicts of interest, but can we agree this is a bit extreme? Advocating against torture is not the same as ripping off taxpayers on the behest of a giant insurance company.