There are two interesting stories in today's Washington Post on the perception of lobbyists.

One is a front page story asking whether the uproar over Tom Daschle's tax problem and his withdrawal as the nominee to run the Health and Human Services Department suggests that the capital city's way of doing business - i.e. the revolving door between public service and the private sector -- may be changing. Ironically, that would please President Obama, who campaigned on "changing Washington" and told multiple news outlets last night that he made mistakes in the way he handled the Daschle situation.

The other piece is a column by Ruth Marcus titled "The Scarlet Lobbyist." Marcus links to a story I wrote in August for National Journal's Convention Daily about lobbyist Heather Podesta who handed out Scarlet Letter "L" patches at the Democratic Convention in Denver. Podesta saw it as a way to tweak the Democratic National Committee and Obama's refusal to accept campaign donations from lobbyists. Marcus also writes that lobbyists have unfairly become a "reviled" class. Her point jibes with how National Journal has approached the coverage of K Street.

"Lost in the popular vision of martini-swilling lobbyists is the reality that, in a government grown so sprawling, lobbyists perform an indispensable mediating function, simultaneously translating the legitimate needs of the clients they represent to policymakers and vice versa," she writes.

Marcus also says she has "misgivings" about the new ethics rules on lobbyists imposed by the Obama administration because "the rules treat all lobbyists as equally reprehensible; they make no distinctions based on the nature of the lobbying client."

I'm curious, what do readers think about these stories? Send me an email.

                                                                                                                     --Bara Vaida