Wow. Even for D.C., this is corrupt:

Meredith Attwell Baker, one of the two Republican Commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission, plans to step down—and right into a top lobbying job at Comcast-NBC.

The news, reported this afternoon by the Wall Street Journal, The Hill, and Politico, comes after the hugely controversial merger of Comcast and NBC earlier this year. At the time, Baker objected to FCC attempts to impose conditions on the deal and argued that the “complex and significant transaction” could “bring exciting benefits to consumers that outweigh potential harms.”

Four months after approving the massive transaction, Attwell Baker will take a top DC lobbying job for the new Comcast-NBC entity, according to reports.

Exactly how blatant does bribery and influence peddling have to become before somebody gets arrested for it? Ka-ching! Sorry, Americans–another Republican sold you out, big-time.

Yes, it’s on both sides–but the Baker case was about as barefaced as it gets. Democrat Christopher Dodd stepping into an executive role at the MPAA was used as an example of what one would call “equivalence,” but Dodd did not shove through a controversial jackpot for the movie industry and then step into the MPAA job a few months later. As far as I can tell, Dodd did not really do anything in particular for the entertainment industry. His hiring was more about connections, skills, and clout.

Baker, on the other hand, is a very different case. She went to work for an organization she very recently ruled over. Not only that, she ruled very much in their favor, to their great profit. Even more, she fought especially hard to make the deal even sweeter for them than was supposed to be, arguing on behalf of the corporate giant against the interests of the American people. And then almost immediately, she quits the government job she used to enrich them and gets enriched herself.

Similarly, another FCC Republican, Michael Powell, now earns millions of dollars a year for the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, which he was supposed to be in charge of regulating when he “served” in his government position as head of the FCC.

Next to these two, Dodd’s sell-out comes across as the very model of propriety. False equivalency strikes again.