Remember back in the 2008 election, when Barack Obama promised he’d usher in a new, hope-y, change-y era with no meddling lobbyists interfering in Washington? After being elected, he continued to promise that no lobbyists would serve in his administration. It took him a mere 24 hours to break that campaign pledge.

Unsurprisingly, this has been a running theme in his administration. (No, not broken campaign pledges, but lobbyists welcomed with open arms into the Obama administration.)

Anita Dunn started off in the White House communications office, but after multiple blunders, she eventually stepped down. She didn’t leave Obama’s circle of special friends, though. She remains one of his key advisers.

She also keeps busy doing other fun things in her spare time: gardening, taking long walks on the beach… oh, and lobbying!

She and her colleagues atSKDKnickerbocker, a communications firm, have built a growing list of blue-chip companies — food manufacturers, a military contractor, the New York Stock Exchange and the Canadian company developing the Keystone XL pipeline — willing to pay handsomely for help in winning over federal regulators or landing government contracts. Some clients and lobbyists who have teamed up with SKDK say they benefit from the firm’s ability to provide information about the Obama administration’s views.

“It is difficult to penetrate this administration,” said Jason Mahler, a lobbyist for the computer technology company Oracle, which was part of a coalition that hired Ms. Dunn’s firm to push for reduced tax rates on offshore profits. “Anyone that has an insight into what they are thinking or their strategy or thoughts on issues we are working on is helpful, and they provided that.”

SKDK executives said that Ms. Dunn, who declined to be interviewed, was scrupulous about separating her political work from her corporate agenda, and that she followed White House ethics rules barring her from appealing on behalf of clients.

Yeah. I bet she was extremely scrupulous. Ed points out that stay-at-home mom basher and Ann Romney hater Hilary Rosen is a colleague over at SKDK.

Hope? Change? Transparency? Yeah, right.