Last night, CNN's "Campbell Brown" program examined examples of broken government -- more specifically, the revolving door in Washington, D.C. As CNN reported:

During the 2008 presidential campaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama repeatedly promised that if elected he would clean up the way Washington works and bar lobbyists from working in his administration.

But just weeks after Obama's inauguration, one found a job in the Pentagon.

William Lynn was confirmed as the No. 2 man in the Defense Department, a bit of a shock because he had spent much of the last decade as a lobbyist for Raytheon, the $25 billion a year defense contractor that makes the Army's Patriot missile system and the Navy's Tomahawk missile.

Government watchdog groups have said that Lynn's rise from one-time Defense Department undersecretary to lobbyist and back to government is another example of the revolving door between governing and lobbying.

"Certainly having William Lynn, who is a top Raytheon lobbyist, immediately turn around and go into the administration is the revolving door at its worst," said Melanie Sloan with the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation sure know how to deliver on earmarks -- for contributors. And, the revolving door between Capitol Hill and K Street aided those efforts.

Campaign contributors who gave a total of $823,000 to members of the congressional subcommittee drafting the defense bill will receive earmarks worth $461 million for their firms. Several of those earmarks were delivered by the Massachusetts House delegation, and in today’s Boston Globe, reporter Bryan Bender writes:

In Massachusetts, nearly 40 percent of the defense earmarks are slated to go to companies whose top executives contributed to the sponsor’s campaigns, hired former lawmakers or congressional aides to lobby on their behalf, or both.

Just a few months ago, Bender cited an earmark that Senator John Kerry inserted into a military spending bill.  That earmark apparently had nothing to do with defense needs – it sought to fund an educational institute.

Looks like the classic mix of earmarks, campaign contributions and the revolving door on Capitol Hill.

Bloomberg's Jonathan Salant reports that the revolving door between Capitol Hill and K Street's lobbying firms is working well for many of the members of Congress who left in 2008.  Their services are welcome in the world of lobbying:

...[A]bout one-quarter of the House and Senate members who retired or lost elections last year have found new jobs with lobbying firms, where business is booming as Obama pushes for multitrillion-dollar changes in federal banking, health care, energy and military procurement policies.

“Even though some people deplore lobbying, it’s still a growth profession,” said Bill Allison, a senior fellow with the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington-based watchdog group.

Law, lobbying and consulting firms have announced the hiring of at least 15 of 61 House and Senate members who left politics or were defeated in 2008.

The new hires include Jim McCrery of Louisiana, who was the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee before moving to Capitol Counsel LLC, where clients include Roche Holdings AG, the world’s biggest drugmaker by value. Gordon Smith, an Oregon Republican who sat on the Senate Finance Committee, joined the Covington & Burling LLP firm, which has advised the Investment Company Institute, the mutual-fund industry trade group.

New York Republican James Walsh, who retired in January after 20 years in Congress and joined the K&L Gates LLP law and lobbying firm, said companies have legitimate needs for experienced advisers.

Last night, Rachel Maddow discussed CREW's new report, Revolving Door,  a first-ever comprehensive look into the activities of 24 members of President Bush’s cabinet, which demonstrates that the “revolving door” in Washington remains open.  After leaving their government positions, many of Bush's cabinet members joined the ranks of the companies they once regulated where they are highly compensated. In many instances, they have helped their new employers obtain lucrative government grants and contracts:

The McClatchy Newspapers took a look at CREW's new report, Revolving Door, a first-ever comprehensive look into the activities of 24 members of President Bush’s cabinet.  We called the revolving door "Washington's favorite pastime."  As McClatchy notes, it isn't new, but it is lucrative:

Washington's revolving door isn't a new phenomenon.

Former senior executive branch officials from past administrations and members of Congress from both parties have traded on their connections to assist private businesses in droves.

CREW's report, the most detailed to date about senior Bush administration officials, suggests that rhetoric about government ethics hasn't altered the pattern. It comes as President-elect Barack Obama has promised to take a tough stand on government ethics even as he deals with the challenge of tapping top talent for short-term public service.

The report said that a number of the former officers had spurned direct lobbying themselves, avoiding unseemly appearances and complying with one-year prohibitions on lobbying their former agencies by serving as strategic corporate advisers.

Occidental hadn't registered to lobby the Department of Energy for two and a half years, but resumed after Abraham joined its board, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington found. Before oil shipments from Libya were approved, the onetime terrorist nation hired a former Abraham deputy as its energy lobbyist.

Months later, Abraham formed the Abraham Group. He didn't lobby himself, but his group has advised at least four energy companies, helping Houston-based Cheniere Energy Inc. win federal approval to build a liquefied natural gas facility in Texas. Since September 2007, the group has offered consulting services to American companies that operate in the tiny Persian Gulf nation of Qatar, a leading LNG producer.

Ridge, who oversaw the formation of the Homeland Security Department in 2003, joined the board of Savi Technology soon after exiting the department in February 2005. The firm makes radio frequency-identification equipment that the department had promoted during his tenure. Ridge also joined the energy utility Exelon and telecom company Lucent, both of which continued to seek DHS business.

In late 2007, Ridge formed Ridge Global, hiring top former White House and Homeland Security counter-terrorism officials and peddling their expertise in security and crisis management.

CREW just released Revolving Door, a first-ever comprehensive look into the activities of 24 members of President Bush’s cabinet. The 108-page report is based on a six-month CREW investigation.  The full report can be found here.

CREW’s newest report demonstrates that the “revolving door” remains open. After leaving their government positions, many of these top officials joined the ranks of the companies they once regulated where they are highly compensated. In many instances, they have helped their new employers obtain lucrative government grants and contracts.

The report names the companies these former officials have joined and the private interests for which they have advocated. Perhaps more importantly, it also reveals the power they continue to wield within the halls of government.

Highlights from Revolving Door include:

- 17 former cabinet officials hold positions with a total of 119 companies.

- 17 former officials hold positions with 65 companies that lobby the federal government.

- 15 former officials hold positions with 40 companies that lobby those officials’ former agencies.

- 9 former cabinet members hold positions with 15 companies that began or resumed lobbying the former officials’ agencies after those officials joined the companies.

- The most prodigious corporate advisor appears to be former Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson, who has worked for 42 different companies since leaving the Bush administration.

When we released the report, Melanie Sloan, CREW’s Executive Director, said:

CREW’s investigation has shown that most of these former Bush administration officials have cannily leveraged their time spent in the public sector. By using their government positions as springboards to new lucrative opportunities, they have successfully made a mint on the backs of American taxpayers. It may be legal, but it is certainly not honorable.

The Washington Post reports that Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Steel is leaving his job to run Wachovia Bank.  Steel "led the department's efforts to overhaul the way banks are regulated, and he has been involved in developing legislation to try to use government-backed loans to prevent foreclosures, which some analysts say would be a boon to banks."  That's how the door revolves:

Steel's move is a dramatic example of a revolving door between business and government. Steel has recused himself from matters involving Wachovia since conversations began about the job in late June, a Treasury Department spokeswoman said, and his actions were cleared with department lawyers. Nonetheless, Steel's move rankles some ethics watchdogs.

"It's not technically a conflict of interest as long as he didn't work on issues that impact only Wachovia," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "But it smells bad. If one day you're regulating banks and the next day you're at the bank, one has to wonder if the decisions you made at Treasury were in view of future employment options."

Steel's move is a dramatic example of a revolving door between business and government. Steel has recused himself from matters involving Wachovia since conversations began about the job in late June, a Treasury Department spokeswoman said, and his actions were cleared with department lawyers. Nonetheless, Steel's move rankles some ethics watchdogs.

"It's not technically a conflict of interest as long as he didn't work on issues that impact only Wachovia," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "But it smells bad. If one day you're regulating banks and the next day you're at the bank, one has to wonder if the decisions you made at Treasury were in view of future employment options."

An editorial in today's New York Times examines Dennis Hastert's new job at a major D.C. lobbying firm -- and finds it exemplifies the "revolving door"" syndrome:

Mr. Hastert, the G.O.P. stalwart who presided during the Jack Abramoff lobbying corruption debacle and the Mark Foley House page scandal, joined a blue-chip lobbying firm this week as a “strategic counsellor” at an annual salary estimated at $500,000-plus. Mr. Hastert, who has set the sky-box level for politicians second-careering, joins the more prized Congressional and executive alumni who schmooze old pals still in power without the need to formally register as day-to-day lobbyists.

We never really expected Mr. Hastert to indulge the Jeffersonian fantasy and humbly return to his old calling as a high school wrestling coach. Still, his new job as access-enabler highlights the capital reality that old incumbents never die; they just backslap away.

More than 200 former members of Congress have crowded through the revolving door to lobby in recent years. More are lining up at the pay window. Congress’s designated ethics monitors already are bending the rules to let incumbents job shop their private-sector value while still on the privileged elected perch.

Capitol Hill alumni burnish their clout by marshaling the lobbying industry’s fund-raising for cooperative incumbents waiting behind. Inside Washington, none of this is surprising. Outside Washington, voters need to confront candidates who demonize the lobbyists who are actually silent underwriters of their candidacies.

To his credit, Senator Barack Obama has ordered the Democratic National Committee to no longer accept donations from lobbyists and political action committees. Senator John McCain should follow suit.

The fact that Marion Blakey doesn't see taking the job she's taking speaks volumes about the state of ethics in the Bush administration.  Blakey doesn't see the problem, CREW does:

Marion Blakey, who heads the Federal Aviation Administration, agreed in July to become president and CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), starting Nov. 12. The association represents firms her agency oversaw and awarded contracts to during her five-year tenure.

In recent weeks, the FAA has awarded a contract worth up to $1.8 billion to revamp the nation's air traffic system, issued emergency safety orders on Boeing jets and aggressively pushed Congress to adopt fees to fund long-term air traffic improvements. All of those actions could impact AIA.

Blakey, whose FAA term ends Thursday, said she has been "scrupulously careful" to follow federal ethics rules and had no direct involvement in matters relating to her new employers since job negotiations began in late June. She filed a letter June 29 vowing not to participate in the creation of rules that could impact association member Boeing, according to a document released Tuesday.

Groups that monitor ethics in Washington were critical.

"It raises some pretty serious ethics questions," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

Scott Amey, general counsel of the Project on Government Oversight, said Blakey's actions fit the public's "worst fear" of government.

"Under the Bush administration, the revolving door has spun out of control," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who has proposed tighter rules on officials leaving government.