You would think so, given how one press report after another on his appointment to the position of White House communications director has focused on his previous work as a lobbyist. The Washington Post in particular devoted an extraordinary amount of space to it:

President Bush yesterday tapped veteran GOP strategist and lobbyist Edward W. Gillespie as White House counselor, adding another Washington insider to a key position in his administration as it continues to battle with Congress over Iraq, the Justice Department and immigration. […] Gillespie’s background as one of Washington’s top lobbyists for corporate interests quickly proved a magnet for criticism yesterday. As chairman of the firm Quinn Gillespie & Associates, Gillespie has been registered to lobby for 57 companies and associations in the financial services, telecommunications, pharmaceutical and transportation fields. Gillespie’s firm had come to be regarded as the one to see if a company wanted access to the White House. Opensecrets.org reported that Quinn Gillespie had income of $16.8 million from lobbying during 2006, including $320,000 from the American Hospital Association, $360,000 from AT&T and $600,000 from the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. Some of the firm’s clients have major decisions pending before federal regulatory bodies and other government institutions. DaimlerChrysler, for instance, is worried about moves to raise fuel-efficiency standards, while XM Satellite Radio is looking for approval of its proposed merger with Sirius. Gillespie will make $168,000 a year in his new job, White House aides said. Gillespie, in a brief interview yesterday, said he would recuse himself from dealings with former partners and clients, but some outside ethics experts and lobbyists said it would be all but impossible for him to avoid influencing at least in a general way the industries he once represented. “This shows the reverse revolving door, spinning at the stratospheric level,” said Don Simon, a Washington lawyer and former general counsel for Common Cause, the good-government advocacy group. “Someone who is at the top of the corporate lobbying world is going into the top of the White House staff, and it shows the sometimes incestuous relationship between lobbyists and government.” White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten dismissed concerns about this lobbying background, saying Gillespie has worked out “a good recusal regime” with the counsel’s office and that he always viewed Gillespie as more of a specialist in strategic communications than lobbying.

By contrast, here’s how the Post covered the ascension of former lobbyist John Podesta to the position of White House chief of staff in October of 1998:

The surprise came from Podesta himself. The 49-year-old lawyer and Chicago native, known for his hard-nosed style and sardonic sense of humor, struck a highly sentimental note as he recalled his family’s immigrant, woking-class roots. “I know what it meant for my grandparents to struggle to come to America at the turn of the century and then to struggle again to survive here, speaking only broken English,” he said. “I know that my father had to quit high school after one year to help support his family. And I know that every day he worked hard on a factory floor, always believing in the American dream that his children would be better off than he was.”His children did do better. Podesta and his older brother, Anthony, ran a successful political consulting firm, Podesta Associates. Before that, he worked on presidential campaigns as far back as George S. McGovern’s in 1972, and held high-level Senate staff positions as counsel for both the Judiciary and Agriculture committees. He has worked closely with such people as Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.).

The report contained no other mention of Podesta’s lobbyist past. To be fair, Podesta first joined Clinton’s staff in 1993, as staff secretary. Back then the Post mentioned Podesta’s former role as a lobbyist briefly in a round-up on several new staffers:

In filling out his staff, Clinton turned to some Washington veterans to balance McLarty’s relative inexperience on that front. Democratic lobbyist John Podesta will serve in the key post of staff secretary, handling the paper flow to the president. Lobbyist and public relations executive Howard Paster will head the legislative affairs office, with Susan Brophy, chief of staff to former senator Timothy E. Wirth (D-Colo.), as his deputy.

The article wasn’t about the number of former lobbyists on Clinton’s staff, however (there were quite a few, including Sandy Berger). Rather, it was titled, ”Campaign Veterans, Washington Hands; Despite Clinton Diversity Pledge, White Males Dominate Top Ranks.”