Josh Gerstein writes an excellent column in Politico today asking a question that’s been almost ever-present since January 2009: “What if Bush had done that?” It’s worth a full read, especially touching on such issues as the war, civil liberties, and a crackdown on whistle-blowing.
What I choose to highlight from it is, as my subject line suggests, a particular indictment of the media for suspending their skepticism of government shenanigans with big business when someone they’ve put on the impossible pedestal of purity and goodness is president. It comes about when media choose a side instead of choosing a principle: My guy would not do that is an inherently different (and far less stable) belief than A president should not put himself in that position.
Gerstein writes:
Closed-door CEO courting
When Vice President Dick Cheney met privately with oil company executives to talk about energy policy, he was excoriated for being an industry stooge and wound up on the receiving end of lawsuits that went all the way to the Supreme Court.
Yet, Obama has repeatedly met with CEOs behind closed doors with little outcry about whether he’s in the tank for business interests.
Last February, he had a sit-down in Silicon Valley with the CEOs of Twitter, NetFlix, Apple, Facebook and Google. In August, the heads of American Express, Xerox, Wells Fargo and Johnson & Johnson were among those who won a cozy Roosevelt Room meeting with Obama. And in 2010, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon had a one-on-one with Obama in the Oval Office. All had the chance to plead their case, and their companies’ case, privately with the president.
The private confabs generate less suspicion because the media consensus — and, to some extent, that of watchdog groups — is that Obama and the business leaders have a strained relationship. Since he’s not seen as being in the pocket of business, the secrecy produces few complaints — even though the potential for the kind of lobbying Obama has criticized is obvious.
