Obama keeps promises only when they are convenient

When the Obama administration wants someone who would violate their campaign promises they dump the promise.

When Bob Bauer replaced Greg Craig last year as White House counsel, it seemed inevitable that he’d be working on some of the same issues he had in his previous job as President Barack Obama’s personal and campaign lawyer.

So late Friday afternoon, in recognition of that reality, the White House issued Bauer a waiver to ethics rules established by Obama that prohibit officials in his administration from working on issues affecting their former clients for two years.

Those rules would have prevented Bauer “from performing roles that someone in the Counsel’s position ordinarily performs” and, therefore, neither “make sense” nor are they “in the public interest,” wrote White House ethics lawyer Norm Eisen in a post on the White House blog. . . .

Perkins Coie – which paid Bauer $959,000 in 2009 and still owes him $216,000 – continues to represent Obama’s presidential campaign, as well as the Obama family and the DNC. In the latter two capacities, the firm is involved in helping Obama fill out his personal financial disclosure statement, which is due next week, and in fighting a lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee seeking to overturn laws prohibiting huge “soft money” donations to political parties.

Bauer is expected to advise the White House on those matters, and a White House official pointed out that in both cases Bauer’s private work is consistent with Obama’s stances in favor of disclosure and reducing the influence of special interest money in politics. . . .