Howard Dean No Longer Eligible to Work for Administration

Conn Carroll /

The Washington Post reports:

Speaking of doctors, former Democratic National Committee chairman and six-term Vermont governor Howard Dean is the latest star to join the government affairs practice of law and lobbying mega-firm McKenna Long & Aldridge. He’s not only a physician but also a “thought leader” on politics and policy, a man whose “network of relationships will benefit clients who are working in states and municipalities across the U.S.,” the firm announced last week. Ah, yes, we knew that 50-state strategy made sense.

Dean joins an impressive lobbying team, including fellow senior policy adviser and former Georgia governor Zell Miller, the Democrat who gave that stirring keynote speech condemning his party and endorsing the greatness of President George W. Bush at the 2004 GOP convention in New York. (And this was before Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, the Democrat-turned-independent from Connecticut, made these speeches fashionable.)

Of course, just because Dean now works for a lobbying firm does not actually disqualify him from an Obama Administration job. Despite President Barack Obama’s promise to the American people not to hire any lobbyists in his administration, he has already broken that promise almost two dozen times. Or maybe Dean isn’t really a lobbyist at all, like Tom Daschle claimed not to be.