At the very bottom of Lynn Sweet’s column today is this: [emphasis added]

Obama opens his presidential fund-raising drive with a laudable self-imposed ban on accepting money from federal lobbyists, political action committees, registered foreign agents and youths under the age of 16.

A common scam for rich donors is to get around federal giving limits by writing checks in the names of their kids — students or tots who are being used by their parents. […]

But he’s been willing to take PAC money in the past — more than $1 million.

While his new standard is welcome, it opens the doors for this question: Should he try to refund PAC and lobby money he has taken in the past?

Remember Glenn Poshard? He banned most of those very same contributions when he ran for governor against George Ryan in 1998. As a result, he had constant money troubles.

There was no such thing as an Internet-based fundraising drive back then, and Obama will undoubtedly depend heavily on the mysterious intertubes to raise money. He’s also brought in Chicago billionaire Penny Pritzker to head up his fundraising eforts.

But there was another problem as well. By positioning himself as holier than thou and imposing such strict and broad limits, Poshard opened himself up to a million little pimpy charges by Ryan and reporters that he was “violating” his own ethics rules. Ryan, who is now a convicted felon, managed to paint Poshard - one of the more ethical people I’ve ever known - as “tainted.”

Sweet points out the first big hole in Obama’s ethical conversion. If the PAC money is now “bad” and won’t be accepted, shouldn’t he therefore return all of that nasty ol’ cash? Guaranteed, there will be lots more stuff just like this.

A lot of people told Poshard back then: “First, you get elected, then you change the rules.”

Thoughts?

*** UPDATE *** As noted by “vole” in comments, another problem with Obama’s decision is that people can say, “Well, you banned those contributions, why not these?” Vole was referring to bundled comments, which Obama will still accept, even though the commenter believes bundled contributions are also tainted goods. I’m sure you can think of any number of pet reforms that people could demand he force on himself.