$30,000 nets access to Obama White House

Kate Hicks:

Remember when Barack Obama promised to change the way Washington does business? No more special interests -- he was going to the White House to fix the country for the American people!

Well, it's abundantly clear that he lied.

White House visitor logs reveal that time with the president or influential members of his staff comes at a price -- a minimum of $30,000. The majority of visitors also happen to be,coincidentally, major donors with an agenda, whose checks get them some time with the president's ear.

Although Mr. Obama has made a point of not accepting contributions from registered lobbyists, a review of campaign donations and White House visitor logs shows that special interests have had little trouble making themselves heard. Many of the president’s biggest donors, while not lobbyists, took lobbyists with them to the White House, while others performed essentially the same function on their visits.

More broadly, the review showed that those who donated the most to Mr. Obama and the Democratic Party since he started running for president were far more likely to visit the White House than others. Among donors who gave $30,000 or less, about 20 percentvisited the White House, according to a New York Times analysis that matched names in the visitor logs with donor records. But among those who donated $100,000 or more, the figure rises to about 75 percent. Approximately two-thirds of the president’s top fund-raisers in the 2008 campaign visited the White House at least once, some of them numerous times.

The timing of the donations is often fishy, too. Many gave money just before or after their time at the White House, raising suspicions that perhaps, they expected to have some time to lobby for a cause, and were therefore paying the White House back.

Interestingly, a prominent Democrat -- Ted Kennedy's son, Patrick -- openly admits that this is how this White House works. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. Everybody wins.

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It is an indication of the desperation of Obama's fund raising that access to the White House is being sold at a premium price.   Obama maybe able to rationalize his broken promise, but voters may have other ideas.