It’s one thing for President Obama to face off against Fox News, the right-wing radio empire and Republican congressional leaders whose names are unfamiliar to much of the public. It’s quite another to confront organized business.
That’s why last week’s announcement by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of a new “Campaign for Free Enterprise” could be one of the year’s most consequential political developments. Now the real resistance to Obama begins.
As long as the global economy was crumbling, business held back and even welcomed the infusion of hundreds of billions of government dollars to prop up the system. Business leaders, like everyone else, were frightened to death. They welcomed Big Government’s exertions to keep the banks alive and gin up consumer purchasing power.
It is an odd tribute to the short-term success of Obama’s recovery effort that the business lobbies now feel free to return to the old-time religion of bashing government and singing the praises of the unfettered marketplace. You might expect the corporate guys to show a little gratitude to the government that bailed them out. But that’s never been their way. They’d rather pretend that the past nine months were a bad dream.
Thus the Chamber’s new offensive. In his statement announcing its campaign, chamber President Thomas J. Donohue tried to brush past the recent unpleasantness as quickly as possible.
Obama and the Politics of Short Memories – E.J. Dionne, Washington Post
