Bloomberg BusinessWeek had a ringside seat at the heavy-handed messaging of the Obama administration in its recent Oval Office interview with the president.
The focus of the interview was to dispel the image of President Obama as anti-business, an idea that has perplexed the president. As he noted, “on the left we are perceived as being in the pockets of Big Business. And then on the business side, we are perceived as being anti-business.”
Of course the two are not mutually exclusive. It’s called corporatism, fascism, or Obamanomics. As “>Mitch noted, from the environment to health care, President Obama has been very engaged with big business cronies while developing policies that could cripple the economy. Even on Wall Street, he thinks his friends like Jamie Dimon deserve their bonuses.
At least on this day, business and the economy topped Obama’s agenda. Twenty steps from the Oval Office, GE’s (GE) Jeff Immelt, Honeywell’s (HON) David Cote, and several other CEOs huddled with White House officials to provide industry input on climate change. With his economic council waiting outside, Obama repeatedly expressed his disappointment that policies he believes are overwhelmingly pro-business have been misunderstood. Obama even had a staffer send a follow-up e-mail to a question about CEOs he admires with additional names, including Cote, Verizon’s (VZ) Ivan Seidenberg, and John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers.
If that opening doesn’t convey just how skeptical the Bloomberg BusinessWeek crew were, check out the of it.
