A flyer was distributed this week offering an “underwriting opportunity” for a dinner on health-care reform, in which the news department had been asked to participate.

The language in the flyer and the description of the event preclude our participation.

We will not participate in events where promises are made that in exchange for money The Post will offer access to newsroom personnel or will refrain from confrontational questioning. Our independence from advertisers or sponsors is inviolable.

There is a long tradition of news organizations hosting conferences and events, and we believe The Post, including the newsroom, can do these things in ways that are consistent with our values.

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The offer — which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters — is a new sign of the lengths to which news organizations will go to find revenue at a time when most newspapers are struggling for survival.

And it’s a turn of the times that a lobbyist is scolding The Washington Post for its ethical practices.

“Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate,” says the one-page flier. “Underwrite and participate in this intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth. … Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama administration and congressional leaders.”

For decades, The Washington Post has challenged lawmakers to explain their close financial ties with the same industries and special interests they were charged with monitoring.

It would seem the Post now has some explaining to do of its own.

The Federal Reserve will get more powers to oversee big financial institutions, large firms will have to raise more capital and meet higher liquidity standards, hedge funds will face higher scrutiny, and a new agency will be set up to protect consumers and small investors.

As soon as his plan is out, though, the president will have the Goldilocks problem. Some will think his proposals too hot, some too cold. Only some will think them just right.

The controversy going forward is which groups will have the clout to make things go their way. As The New York Times reports today, financial industry representatives and consumer groups have been lobbying hard over the past few weeks for their interests, which already has affected the scope of the proposals.

Although it would strikingly reorganize the regulatory architecture, the president’s plan results from many compromises with industry executives and lawmakers, and is not as bold as some had hoped.

And that’s even before Congress gets its hands on the proposal.

At the end of the Goldilocks story, she gets caught and runs away. It will be worth watching to see if Obama can prevent this story from ending the same way.

From ABC:

Patterson first began lobbying for Goldman Sachs in 2005, after working as policy director for then-Senate majority leader Tom Daschle. According to publicly filed lobbying disclosure records, he worked on issues related to the banking committee, climate change and carbon trading and immigration reform, among others.

Patterson’s lobbying was first noted by the National Journal magazine.

Patterson is one of over a dozen recent lobbyists in line for important posts in the Obama administration, despite a presidential order severely restricting the role of lobbyists in his administration, the magazine reported.

Steve Ellis, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, isn’t happy:

“Considering that Goldman was an early and large recipient of our TARP funding, being pulled out of that really does effect his ability to be an effective chief of staff for the treasury secretary.”

If this keeps up, plenty of others aren’t going to be too happy, either. Those new lobbying rules seems well on its way to becoming a distant memory. Where’s the justification for all this? Aren’t there qualified people out there who don’t happen to be former lobbyists?

I guess we’ll probably find out in late-Friday-afternoon press releases, like the one last week that announced an exemption for former Raytheon lobbyist Bill Lynn from the lobbying rule, thereby making his nomination as deputy defense secretary more likely.

As Spencer put it, “change we can believe in!”

That’s the latest debate-night declaration from Sen. Barack Obama aide Hari Sevugan, as he personally blasted Porritt, a spokesman for the McCain campaign, over Porritt’s claim that there are “no associations with any lobbyists on our campaign.” Porritt made the statement while trying to deflect questions about a Sen.  John McCain confidante accused of lobbying for Saddam Hussein.

In reality, McCain’s campaign is top-heavy with lobbyists –including such key players as Rick Davis (Verizon, DHL), Charlie Black (Freddie Mac), John Green (Chevron, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae) and Randy Schuenemann (BP, Amoco, NRA, interests in Ukraine and Georgia) — as TWI’s Spencer Ackerman noted in a post on this “New McCain Lie.”

The Obama Campaign says this man is lying to you.

It is one thing, however, for journalist Spencer Ackerman to chide Porritt for a “bald-faced lie.” Within presidential campaigns, though, it is unusual for operatives to attack their counterpart’s character by name.  That is not only longstanding decorum but a practical necessity. Regular staff-level attacks would make public squabbles even more unpalatable and could further alienate the few voters who even listen to the daily rhetorical combat.  That is not in any campaign’s interest.

Yet going into the final debate and campaign homestretch, Obama’s aides are taking names, trying to attack and shame individual GOP operatives to counter a McCain media strategy that, according to Democrats, is built on a daily stream of smears and lies.

* * *

Here is Sevugan’s entire statement:

Today, in answering a question about the propriety of John McCain choosing a Washington lobbyist, who helped efforts to lift sanctions against Saddam Hussein in the wake of the Gulf War, to run his transition efforts, campaign  spokesman Ben Porritt told a national TV audience that  “throughout our campaign, and we’ve talked about this a lot, we’ve had no associations with any lobbyists on our campaign.”

Ladies and gentleman, Ben Porritt is literally lying to you.  John McCain has at least 177 current or former lobbyists running his campaign and raising money for him, including seven of his top advisors.  In addition to William Timmons, who worked to end sanctions against Saddam Hussein, McCain’s stable of lobbyists include those who have worked for Verizon and AT&T, which provided McCain with cell phone towers for his Arizona ranch.

We urge Ben and you to learn more about McCain’s lobbyists below and at  www.McLobbyist.com.

Seriously. Watch:

Points for chutzpah! McCain’s campaign is run by a Freddie Mac lobbyist whose company got paid $15,000 to do nothing but have the guy hang around John McCain. The Washington Post even ran a frontpage piece in February detailing all of McCain’s ties to lobbyists. (Charlie Black! Mark McKinnon! Steve Schmidt!) You can see why the McCain people want this election to be about violent hippies. (Oh, sorry, “terrorists.”)

Without denying the veracity of The Times’ story, Schmidt lashed out today at the journalistic integrity of the newspaper and it’s alleged bias in favor of Sen. Barack Obama, during a 45-minute conference call with what seemed to be just about every political reporter in Washington.

“We are first amendment absolutists on this campaign, in that the press, and anybody who wishes to cover this race, from the blogosphere perspective or a media perspective, of course is constitutionally-protected with regard to writing whatever they want to write.

But let’s be clear and be honest with each other about something fundamental to this race, which is this: whatever The New York Times once was, it is today not, by any standard, a journalistic organization. It is a pro-Obama advocacy organization that every day attacks the McCain campaign, attacks Sen. McCain, attacks Gov. Palin and excuses Sen. Obama. There’s no level of public vetting with regard to Sen. Obama’s record, his background, his past statements. There’s no level of outrage directed at his deceitful ads.

This is an organization that is completely, totally, 150 percent in the tank for the Democratic candidate, which is their prerogative to be. But let’s not be dishonest, and call it something other than what it is. Everything that is read in The New York Times that attacks this campaign should be evaluated by the American people from that perspective: that it is an organization that has made a decision to cast aside its journalistic integrity and tradition, to advocate for the defeat of one candidate — in this case, John McCain — and advocate for the election of the other candidate, Barack Obama.”

Davis got two questions about his ties to the Homeownership Alliance, the group that was the focus of The Times’ piece. Both times, Schmidt changed the subject to a critique of The Times and the news media in general.

Schmidt also blasted reporters for not pursuing the Obama campaign’s questionable connections as aggressively as it had McCain’s. Schmidt specifically cited Sen. Joseph Biden’s son, whom Schmidt referred to as a lobbyist on behalf of the credit card and banking industry (Marc Ambinder notes The Times has published two articles on Biden’s son); Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod’s lobbying activities, and Obama’s relationship to former Weatherman William Ayers.

Schmidt alleged the existence of a “fierce campaign of intimidation” against Obama critics.

“The reality is this: you may not read it on the front page of The New York Times, but the Obama campaign is surrounded by people who have worked in the lobbying industry, and he has been able to make these charges for months with no scrutiny about the reality of his record, and the reality of the records of the people around him. We would hope that in the final 43 days of this campaign, there is a restoration to some degree of the level of symmetry in coverage on these type of issues, because the American people deserve no less.”

While reporters were looking for quotes to follow up on The Times’ article — following a string of ads released by the McCain campaign hitting Obama for his campaign’s ties to Fannie Mae –  Schmidt appeared to have pretty successfully deflected questions about Davis’ own connections to the current financial crisis by engaging in the classic now standard conservative pasttime of bashing The New York Times.

A Boeing 777 touches down. (Flickr: News46)

At 12:01 a.m. Pacific time Saturday, 27,000 Boeing Co. machinists, protesting a lack of job security, went on strike. A lengthy walkout would halt the assembly of several pricey Boeing planes, including its 777.

The aeronautic giant’s 777 is supposed to have enough fuel capacity to win the Air Force’s most lucrative contract: a $35-billion deal to replace 179 aging aerial refueling tankers. Even before the strike, Boeing said that it needed more time to put in a contract bid.

For the past month now, the Pentagon has been unable to lay out it final bidding specifications for a contract expected to pit Boeing against the combo of Northrop Grumman and Airbus, a subsidiary of the European Aeronautic and Defense Space Co., or EADS.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

In February, Northrop Grumman and EADS surprisingly won the contract to build the aerial tankers. Boeing immediately filed the protest with the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. The company also claimed that 40,000 U.S. jobs were on the line — including ones held by the striking machinists– to make the jet aircraft and then install mounted tanks for midair refuel transfer. Boeing and its allies in Congress pointed out that Northrop Grumman/EADS tankers would at least be partly designed and built in France.

GAO had upheld the Boeing protest and voided the deal in June, assailing the Air Force for not communicating contract requirements and not accurately computing costs. Because Boeing is asking for more time to submit its latest bid, the Pentagon’s third attempt to reward the aerial tanker contract could now be delayed until the next administration.

In other words, Boeing’s labor dispute is just the latest twist in a tangled seven-year defense contracting fiasco to procure “gas stations in the sky.” But it’s also something more. It raises questions about whether Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the Republican presidential nominee, is the crusader against Washington corruption that he claims to be.

In 2001, the Air Force handed the tanker contract to Boeing, the largest aircraft manufacturer in the world. But in 2005, the Air Force terminated the deal after McCain led a three-year investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee that unearthed potentially illegal conduct by Air Force and Boeing officials. At the time, the media hailed McCain as a heroic, lonely crusader who had saved taxpayers millions of dollars.

But there may have been another side to McCain’s investigation — one that may undercut a central premise of his presidential campaign: that he will be a reformer as president.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

Here’s the issue. The Associated Press revealed in March that five registered lobbyists for EADS were working for McCain’s presidential campaign, including Tom Loeffler, who served as the campaign’s co-chairman. Also, in 2006, McCain wrote two strongly worded, and likely influential, letters to the Pentagon, arguing that EADS acceptance of European Union subsidies should not be factored into who gets the tanker contract.

A top McCain Senate aide, Chris Paul, has said the Arizona senator wrote the letters without lobbyist’s help and that they reflect his interest in “full and open competition.”

But McCain’s presidential campaign rarely details the Boeing investigation as evidence of his reformer bona fides. Instead, it has been mostly Democrats, with Boeing employees as constituents, who bring up the case. They highlight a different side of McCain — his campaign’s continued ties to current and former lobbyists.

The McCain-spearheaded investigation, which began in 2002, discovered that Darleen A. Druyan, then the No. 2 weapons buyer for the Air Force, had awarded Boeing a $23-billion contract to lease rather than buy 100 aerial tankers — though purchasing the aircraft would have been far cheaper.

Druyan’s reason: She was grateful that Boeing had given her daughter and her boyfriend jobs. Boeing had also promised Druyan a job. In 2005, the Air Force ended the contract. That year Druyan, along with former Boeing Chief Financial Officer Michael Sears, were sentenced to prison.

At the time, McCain’s investigation mostly got rave reviews in the media and from taxpayer watchdog groups. “It’s the best example of congressional oversight that we’ve seen in a decade,” said Keith Ashdown, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. “It was before the completely bone-headed decision to bring on all those EADS lobbyists.”

EADS Lobbyists in the McCain Campaign

Chief among the EADS lobbyists was former Texas Rep. Tom Loeffler. “Loeffler has been at the intersection of special-interest money and politics for decades,” said Andrew Wheat, research director at Texans for Public Justice, a non-partisan, nonprofit policy and research organization.

Loeffler, who was finance co-chairman for George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign, joined McCain’s campaign in February 2006, before McCain officially announced his candidacy. “If needed,” Loeffler said at the time, “I’ll wash bottles and change tires on the Straight Talk America van.”

McCain’s cash-strapped campaign become dependent on Loeffler, who assumed a central role as fund-raiser. In 2007, the Loeffler Group earned $220,000 lobbying for EADS. Loeffler resigned in May, when McCain purged his staff of registered lobbyists to signal that his campaign does not have conflicts of interests

While Loeffler has formally left McCain’s presidential campaign, Loeffler Group lobbyist William Ball, a former Navy secretary, remains an unpaid McCain adviser.

Meanwhile, Susan Loeffler has stayed as the campaign’s co-finance chairman and recently left her position at the Loeffler Group. The Loeffler Group said it was their policy not to talk with the press.

The other two EADS lobbyists formerly associated with McCain’s presidential campaign are Kirk Blalock, a lobbyist at Fierce, Iskowitz and Blalock and the president of Young Professionals for John McCain, and Wayne Berman, who works for Oglivy Government Relations.

Blalock, who has bundled more than $250,000 for MCain’s presidential bid, did not return calls for comment. The Arizona Republic reported that he has stayed on the campaign as an unpaid fund-raiser. A spokesman for Berman said that he no longer holds his former campaign title of deputy finance chairman, and is instead an unpaid adviser and fund-raiser.

Loeffler and the other EADS lobbyists joined McCain’s presidential campaign soon after the Arizona senator, in his capacity as chairman of the Airland Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, asked the Pentagon to rewrite its bidding requirements for the aerial tanker program. In September 2006, the Pentagon’s request for a contract proposal was still in draft stage. But it appeared the Air Force would take into consideration a suit filed by the U.S. in the WTO court that sought to end the European Union’s policy of giving no interest loans to EADS.

McCain argued in the letter (pdf), obtained by The Washington Independent, that there was no legal right for the Air Force to include a WTO matter in the contract proposal, and that including the dispute amounted to giving Boeing the contract. On Dec. 1, 2006, McCain wrote a similar letter (pdf) to Secretary of Defense-nominee Robert Gates, who four days later appeared before McCain and the rest of the Senate Armed Services Committee for his confirmation hearings. The committee and full Senate swiftly confirmed Gates.

Indeed, after assuming his Cabinet post, Gates wrote a letter (pdf) to McCain confirming that the Pentagon’s thinking had changed — the final request for proposal would not include the WTO dispute.

McCain says that EADS lobbyists did not help write any of his letters to the Pentagon or influence his actions. But he does not deny that he used his role as a high-profile reformer and subcommittee chair to ensure Northrop Grumman/EADS could bid on the aerial tanker contract.

“I had nothing to do with the contract,” McCain said in March in response to audience questions in St. Louis, home of a Boeing plant, “except to insist in writing, on several occasions, as the process went forward, that it be fair and open and transparent.”

Criticism from Across the Aisle

Infuriated Democratic lawmakers who have Boeing employees in their districts — like Rep. Norman Dicks (D-Wash.) — have called the letters “a game changer” in tilting the second contract to Northrop Grumman/EADS.

“I hope voters of this state [Washington] remember what John McCain has done to them and their jobs,” said Dicks after the contract was rewarded. Washington state has more than 70,000 Boeing employees, including the vast majority of the machinists on strike.

The criticism hasn’t stopped. At the Democratic National Convention in Denver two weeks ago, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who has about 3,000 constituents employed by Boeing, said that if McCain becomes president, “the tanker will be made in England and France instead of Wichita and Seattle.” Sebelieus subsequently told Crain’s Chicago Business that, “It really comes down to a American company versus a European company.”

If Boeing wins the contract, the aircraft is expected to be modified into refueling tankers in Kansas.

McCain’s campaign press office did not return repeated calls for comment. McCain’s last statement on the contract was in July when he approved of Gates re-opening the contract and facilitating “full and open competition.” McCain did say in his presidential nomination acceptance speech Thursday at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul that he “fought crooked deals at the Pentagon.” But he did not elaborate.

“It’s tough to read McCain,” said Bill Allison, a senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan watchdog organization seeking greater government transparency. “He’s makes a lot of moves toward reform, and the next moment does something that’s questionable.”

“In Alaska now, with the budget under control, we have a surplus. I’ve never hesitated to protect the wages and the jobs of our people by vetoing wasteful spending. I’ve also championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending of Congress. As the senator said, I told the Congress, ‘Thanks, but no thanks for that bridge to nowhere. If our state wanted to build a bridge, we would b ild it ourselves.’”

In the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal, earmarks have become synonymous with corruption. Therefore extolling one’s opposition to them has become fashionable on the stump. Unfortunately for Palin, she does not point out that as a candidate for governor, she supported the earmark for the so-called “Bridge to Nowhere.” The Washington Post finds that as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Palin was perfectly willing to play ball, even going so far as to hire — GASP! — well-connected lobbyists to ensure her town got a disproportionately large piece of the federal spending pie.

As mayor of Wasilla, however, Palin oversaw the hiring of Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh, an Anchorage-based law firm with close ties to Alaska’s most senior Republicans: Rep. Don Young and Sen. Ted Stevens, who was indicted in July on charges of accepting illegal gifts. The Wasilla account was handled by the former chief of staff to Stevens, Steven W. Silver, who is a partner in the firm.

Palin was elected mayor of Wasilla in 1996 on a campaign theme of “a time for change.” According to a review of congressional spending by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a non-partisan watchdog group in Washington, Wasilla did not receive any federal earmarks in the first few years of Palin’s tenure.

Senate records show that Silver’s firm began working for Palin in early 2000, just as federal money began flowing.

In fiscal 2000, Wasilla received a $1 million earmark, tucked into a transportation appropriations bill, for a rail and bus project in the town. And in the winter of 2000, Palin appeared before congressional appropriations committees to seek earmarks, according to a report in the Anchorage Daily News.

Palin and the Wasilla City Council increased Silver’s fee from $24,000 to $36,000 a year by 2001, Senate records show.

Soon after, the city benefited from additional earmarks: $500,000 for a mental health center, $500,000 for the purchase of federal land and $450,000 to rehabilitate an agricultural processing facility. Then there was the $15 million rail project, intended to connect Wasilla with the town of Girdwood, where Stevens has a house.

The Post reports Wasilla — population 6,700 — received $6.1 million in earmerks in fiscal year 2002, compared to $6.9 million for Boise, Idaho, which has a population of 190,000. In February, Palin submitted a request for $200 million in earmarks to the now-indicted Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).

I’ve never been to Wasilla. I don’t know what its needs are, and some of the projects listed in The Post article seem worthwhile. It could be that $900,000 for sewer repairs is a solid investment for the people of the town. Others, probably could have used more scrutiny, like the $15-million rail link. Whatever the case, Palin’s claim to being an anti-earmark crusader is a bit off.

This also reveals a lot about the philosophies of Sen. John McCain and his running mate. McCain has taken a hard line against earmarks, and my home state of Arizona ranks dead last in federal “pork” spending. Stevens, and we now know Palin played the game: Alaska ranks first in pork.

Pork is a derogatory, catch-all term that includes a lot of projects, from Woodstock museums and bridges to nowhere to schools and hospitals. Earmarks aren’t all bad. Some are genuinely worthwhile, despite being labeled as pork.

I’m not saying everyone should behave like Stevens. Certainly, there should be a lot more oversight and appropriations should be evaluated on the basis of merit. But the reality is that McCain’s campaign pledge to veto all bills containing an earmark, which sounds great on its face and never fails to get cheers from a town hall audience, would slow the frequently glacial pace of lawmaking to a near stop. His blanket anti-earmark stance, which has been mimicked by several of his House colleagues, has left Arizona severely underrepresented in Congress.

McCain has long been more prominent as a national figure than he has been in his home state. His service to his constituents is a major aspect of McCain’s career in Washington that has thus far escaped hard examination during this campaign season. It looks like this could be about to change. Stay tuned.