Obama Appoints Lobbyist as Senior Policy Adviser

The Obama campaign just appointed Daniel Shapiro as a senior advisor and Jewish outreach coordinator to the campaign. Interestingly, Shapiro is also a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute. This, of course, is only interesting because of the appearance of hypocrisy. Obama has touted the fact that he will not accept money from lobbyists -- because he does not want to be influenced by them as president. Clearly, though, he has not banned lobbyists from providing advice and endorsements...

Update: A reader points out that Daniel Kurtzer’s (another Obama foreign policy adviser) trip to Syria was paid for by an oil company, as well.