BULLETIN: Microsoft Employs Lobbyists. Also: Water, Wet; Fire, Hot

Given Microsoft’s espoused feelings about Google’s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick, is it really a surprise that the company has retained the services of some veteran lobbyists to make those sentiments known around the Beltway? According to a recent public-disclosure filing with the U.S. Senate, Microsoft has hired law firm Patton Boggs to highlight the competitive issues associated with the Google-DoubleClick merger, which it argues will harm competition in the online advertising market.

Patton Boggs has some pretty big legal guns in its antitrust arsenal, among them Antitrust Modernization Commission vice chairman and former Clinton White House attorney Jonathan Yarowsky.

Course Google’s packing quite a bit of lobbyist heat these days, too: The Podesta Group, Makan Delrahim (former deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s antitrust division) and former Republican U.S. Sens. Dan Coats and Connie Mack–both partners in the Washington law firm of King & Spaulding–are all helping to steer the company through regulatory approvals in its proposed acquisition of DoubleClick.