(Part I.)

Imagine, if you will, the reaction from the Left ? elected officials, academics, talking heads, bloggers, etc. ? to a report showing that the Bush White House met hundreds upon hundreds of times in less than a year with oil industry CEOs, lobbyists, and researchers to discuss in secret legislation that would greatly change and restrict how Americans are allowed by their government to purchase petroleum products, legislation that would greatly increase the cost of those products and greatly burden the U.S. consumers and taxpayers.

Now wonder why those same people say nothing against the following, actual report from the Associated Press (which is why I didn’t ask about advocates for limited government; their reaction would be the same in both cases):

Top aides to President Barack Obama met early and often with lobbyists, Democratic political strategists and other interests with a stake in the administration’s national health care overhaul, White House visitor records obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press show.

The AP in early August asked the White House to produce records identifying communications that top Obama aides ? including chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, senior advisers David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett and Pete Rouse, and 18 others ? had with outside interests on health care. The AP in late September narrowed its request to White House visitor records for those officials on health care.

The White House on Wednesday provided AP with 575 visitor records covering the period from Jan. 20, when Obama was inaugurated, through August. … The records show a broad cross-section of the people most heavily involved in the health care debate, weighted heavily with those who want to overhaul the system. Among them were Dr. Eliot Fisher, a Dartmouth health researcher who has estimated that nearly one-third of health care dollars are wasted on unneeded services, and Dr. David Himmelstein of Harvard Medical School, who is among the top advocates of a single-payer health care system.

The list also includes George Halvorson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Health Plans; Scott Serota, president and CEO of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association; Kenneth Kies, a Washington lobbyist who represents Blue Cross/Blue Shield, among other clients; Billy Tauzin, head of PhRMA, the drug industry lobby; and Richard Umbdenstock, chief of the American Hospital Association.

Several lobbyists for powerful health care interests, including insurers, drug companies and large employers, also visited the White House complex, the records show …