AN ENCOURAGING PRECEDENT:

Lynn's appointment nowhere near settled (JEN DIMASCIO, 1/23/09, Politico)

The Obama administration Friday waived its ethics rules to ease the nomination of former Raytheon lobbyist William Lynn as deputy defense secretary, but the matter is nowhere near settled.

And Obama’s former presidential rival, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), could be the stopper. [...]

On Thursday, the Project on Government Oversight asked Obama to withdraw the nomination. And on Friday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the Government Accountability Project and Public Citizen signed a letter to Levin and McCain, the committee’s ranking Republican.

Before the president’s ethics policy was issued, Lynn’s nomination wouldn’t have been questioned, the groups said. But the president’s new ethics rules changed all that, leading watchdog groups to “believe that Mr. Lynn simply could not effectively serve as the deputy secretary of defense.”

Coming just a day after his silly WoT pronouncements, the UR's eagerness to disregard his own supposed rule changes is heartening.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 23, 2009 8:35 PM