The New York Times reports that President Barack Obama has found a way around his pledge to not accept money from lobbyists. While not officially registered with the Senate as lobbyists, at least 15 Obama bundlers (supporters who contribute their own money to his campaign and solicit it from others) are involved in lobbying for Washington consulting shops or private companies and have raised over five million dollars for the president's re-election campaign so far.

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This is really three stories in one. One, the president seems to have violated at least the spirit a campaign promise. Two, the president has employed a technicality to get around an overt ethical reversal. And three, one of the most left-leaning, Obama-supporting mainstream media outlets uncovered, investigated and is reporting on the story.

The first two stories are unfortunately not unique as politicians break promises and crawl through ethical loopholes all the time. But the New York Times questioning Mr. Obama's ethics might be bigger news than the broken promise itself. From the article:

But registered or not, the bundlers are in many ways indistinguishable from people who fit the technical definition of a lobbyist. They glide easily through the corridors of power in Washington, with a number of them hosting Mr. Obama at fund-raisers while also visiting the White House on policy matters and official business.

While the story mentions that ethics watchdogs credit the president with "raising ethical standards in Washington" by barring official lobbyists from contributing to his campaign and holding jobs in his administration, it goes on to say:

[T]he prevalence of major Obama fund-raisers who also work in the lobbying arena threatens to undercut the president’s ethics push, raising questions about whether the campaign's policies square with its on-the-ground practices, some of those same watchdogs say.

Could this be an indication that the mainstream media in general and the New York Times in particular may cover the 2012 election in at least a slightly less biased fashion than it covered the 2008 contest? Stay tuned.