Psych!

Hey, remember in 2007, when then-candidate Barack H. Obama said some bullshit about not letting people buy their way into government...? Whoooooooooooops! Just kidding. An analysis of the big donors to the '08 campaign has found that the bundlers, people who raise large sums of money for a candidate by soliciting donations from other supporters, were rewarded for their fundraising efforts with jobs in the administration.

"We found that nearly 200 of the bundlers had obtained administration posts for themselves or their spouses," said Fred Schulte at the Center for Public Integrity, one of three reporters who worked on the project.

He said the jobs the bundlers got ran the gamut: ambassadorships, positions on advisory boards that help make policy, jobs at the Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission and other federal agencies.

Bigger bundlers did better. In the top tier, each bundler delivered at least $500,000 in contributions to the campaign. Eighty percent of them went into the administration, often as ambassadors.

Emphasis mine. Now, mind you, this is standard operating procedure in Washington: You give me money and help me get elected; I give you (or your spouse, or your kid) a job.

Just because it's typical doesn't make it right, but this backscratching bullshit is nothing that other administrations (and other elected officials, including virtually every member of Congress) haven't done. Thing is: All of those other folks didn't explicitly campaign on NOT DOING IT.

When the Center for Public Integrity released the report last week, critics were quick to recall how candidate Barack Obama had attacked lobbyists and special interests in his February 2007 announcement speech.

"They write the checks and you get stuck with the bill," Obama said at the time. "They get the access while you get to write a letter. They think they own this government, but we're here today to take it back."

White House spokesman Jay Carney tried to brush off the report.

"The fact that individuals who have been appointed also supported the president is hardly a story," he said.

When reporters pressed him, he defended the hires.

"Being a supporter does not qualify you for a job or guarantee you a job," he said. "But it does not disqualify you, obviously."

HOPE AND CHANGE, MOTHERFUCKERS!

[H/T to Eastsidekate.]