When Ruth Marcus writes about lobbying issues for the Washington Post does she or her employer ever consider disclosing that her husband Jon Liebowitz served as the Vice President for Congressional Affairs for the Motion Picture Association of America from 2000 to 2004? I’m sure Ms. Marcus has hurt feelings that her family is deemed somewhat illegitimate by the Obama administration’s rule against hiring registered lobbyists, and I understand her periodic compulsion to write in defense of lobbyists’ honor. But that’s the point. She has a conflict of interest. She doesn’t like a system that assumes that all lobbyists, whether they be “a lobbyist for an environmental group and the lobbyist for the coal industry,” are treated as lepers. That’s understandable, but a simple disclosure would help the reader understand where she’s coming from.
