Your economic points are simply bizarre. Name one President, in the entire history of these United States, that has NOT used the budget process to benefit his ideological allies. Besides Washington.

I’m not claiming Obama is squeaky clean. I’m claiming they’re normal, so far, and that Rove was much worse than normal.

You got something better than that?

They have already manipulate the state of the economy to have veto power on the automobile industry and to give the UAW whatever it wants. In addition, the stimulus money is flowing into the pockets of the core Democrats groups such as big city political machines.

President Obama did fire all of the U.S. attorneys. Who knows if they have all been replaced yet. Who knows if all of the political appointee positions have been filled.

Or manipulates terror alert levels to convince people to vote for his guy.

You don’t have to like Axelrod. But you do have to admit that if this is the worst he can do in 10 years nobody will be accusing a political operative of “being as bad as Axelrod.” They’ll still be saying “As bad as Rove.”

“Yes he is probably corrupt as hell and a lying ball-busting SOB that is politicizing everything just like Rove did, but he’s our lying ball-busting SOB, so it’s all good. Just don’t rub my nose in it. I don’t really want to know what he is doing, and would prefer to pretend he doesn’t exist.”

Hence, not that much coverage, and little interest when there is.

This is the change I do believe has taken place – we’ve changed the party, changed the players, and changed the rhetoric – but the ethics and the game is identical. Maybe even worse, since fewer believe it and with Single Party Rule, Congress has abrogated their oversight role. No one is watching the store.

I don’t think anything illegal is going on. Probably just your usual run of the mill every day Chicago-style graft.

This is all about context and appearance of conflict.

The context is that Axelrod is the President’s closest adviser in an administration that represents itself as the most ethically stringent and transparent in history. In that context, it is incumbent on Axelrod to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest. In that context I can think of another thing he could do – How about this – As a key administration official involved in secret negotiations with big Pharma over the Health Care Bill, where he is demanding tens of of millions of dollars of advertising in support of the administration position as quid pro quo for concessions on the bill, how about – I dunno – he make sure that money is not directed to a firm with his name on the masthead and his son on the payroll? Just a thought.

Bill Allison of The Sunlight Foundation puts it in context:

“… the selection of Axelrod’s former firm to push the president’s top initiative raises appearance questions, particularly since Axelrod’s son Michael still works there, said Bill Allison of the Sunlight Foundation, which advocates for stricter government disclosure and ethics rules.

“The big issue seems to me whether there is a quid pro quo with PhRMA,” said Allison, adding “there’s no evidence that Axelrod steered the business to the firm. But the fact that special interests like PhRMA and the American Medical Association working hand in glove with the White House picked a firm that is so close to the White House shows how incestuous Washington can be.”

As far as I can tell it doesn’t. He gets a flat $3 million.

Does Axelrod have a way to buy back in? As far as I can tell he doesn’t have a guaranteed deal.

Which means is only interest remaining in the firm in that it survives long enough to pay out that $3 million.

Which begs the question:
What do you think he should have done? Written off his share in the firm completely?