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A War in Name Only: Chamber CEO Met 10 Times With White House

| Wed Nov. 25, 2009 1:14 PM PST

Remember the war between the White House and the US Chamber of Commerce? Well, nevermind. Despite the Chamber's protests that the President was trying to "neuter and marginalize us," White House records released today show that Chamber CEO Thomas Donohue met with administration officials 10 times during Obama's first nine months in office, including twice with the President himself.

Stories in the Washington Post and Politico have painted a much different picture: "Instead of working through the Chamber," the Post reported last month, "President Obama has reached out to business executives, meeting repeatedly with small groups of CEOs in his private White House dining room." A few weeks later, an address by chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to the Chamber's board of directors was described by Politico as "fence mending" and extending an "olive branch."

But was it? The White House visitor logs suggest that a true war between the White House and the Chamber never really happened. They're less enemies than frienemies--reluctant and mutually-suspicious collaborators.

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Josh Harkinson is a staff reporter at Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here.

Comments

"Reaching out....?"

Submitted by avannavon on Wed Nov. 25, 2009 3:21 PM PST.

Obama wasn't "reaching out" to the Chamber of Commerce. He was trying to co-opt them and get them to agree to their own demise---similar to AARP. It didn't work. So now, there's a public spat moving toward open warfare.

HOW dumb do you think people are?

Oh, I forgot....this is Mother Jones....the same people who still believe in Global Warming and that providing health care for an additional 30 million people is going to save us money and that its normal for a President to spend over a million dollars suppressing his own birth certificate. Right.

Exactly right, avannavon.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed Nov. 25, 2009 6:37 PM PST.

Exactly right, avannavon.

Avannavon you're a moron

Submitted by Gary K on Wed Nov. 25, 2009 6:40 PM PST.

You show up on every Mojo blog to slam the reporting no matter the subject - go home you Rush Limbaugh wannabe.

HOW dumb do you think people are?

Submitted by TJ_rex on Wed Dec. 2, 2009 6:46 AM PST.

Well avannavon judging by your post I would say people like you are quite dumb.
Keep up the posts though it lets us know just how much wing-nuts have regressed!

where is the potato field

Submitted by furqan (not verified) on Sat Dec. 19, 2009 10:55 AM PST.

where is the potato field located that idiots like you are spawned! get a life jackass!

nothing

Submitted by Marshabar on Sun Jan. 17, 2010 8:58 AM PST.

nothing

Exactly right........

Submitted by JB is the truth (not verified) on Wed Nov. 25, 2009 9:08 PM PST.

Gary K you are exactly right! I read a number of stories on Mojo today and to my surprise, the same idiot showed up in the comments after each article. The funny part is that he's so busy insulting people and talking about the closed mind of the liberal reader that he fails to notice that he has ascribed to the same particular vein of neo-con dogma that was so popular under the shrub. This guy should look within the next time he wants to call someone else stupid.

mmmm...

Submitted by Steve Johnson (not verified) on Thu Nov. 26, 2009 8:17 PM PST.

Don't know what to think about this. The US Chamber of Commerce are the spawn of Satan, that much is a given. Their lying advertising/astroturfing activities are proof of the complete lack of an ethical or moral compass.

Saying all this, sometimes it is good to talk to the enemy - you find out more and it leaves more options open.

I'll give the administration a pass on this - for now.

The goal and mission of the

Submitted by christmas presents (not verified) on Thu Nov. 26, 2009 9:30 PM PST.

The goal and mission of the Chamber of Commerce is for the richer to get richer and the poor to get poorer. This is a special interest group that is maximizing on the public's-at-large perception that the "chambers of commerce" are somehow advocates for and inclusive in their mission of the average working American. If such were the case, affordable health care coverage would have been available to all workers, we would all be making a liveable wage, and have some measure of job security. Of course they enjoy all of that, along with the golden parachutes. We dunces out here in the trenches just keep drinking the Kool-Aid. As long as they're declaring war on the POTUS, he must be doing something right. If this were in another region of the world the working people would have taken to the streets long ago!

Turns out....

Submitted by avannavon on Fri Nov. 27, 2009 11:48 PM PST.

Gee, it turns out that the US Chamber wasn't lying about global warming....it was Hadley CRU. And there's no point in talking about global warming anymore, because the earth hasn't been warming in ten years.

Oh, boo-hoo. No convenient excuse to hand over our national sovereignty or tax ourselves for our sins and redistribute our wealth to "pure" undeveloped countries and their undeveloped dictators.

Uninformed again, avannavon

Submitted by Gary K on Sat Nov. 28, 2009 2:39 PM PST.

Global warming is a fact beyond dispute except by the lunatic fringe like yourself that keep spewing the same old misinformation. Repeating a lie does not make it true.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, "each of the last 12 years (1997-2008) was one of the warmest on record" (since 1880 when detailed records began). According to the NOAA, the warmest years were:

1) 2005
2) 1998
3) 2002
4) 2003
5) 2006
6) 2007
7) 2004
8) 2001
9) 2008
10) 1997

Still think the world hasn't warmed in ten years?

Idiot.

Destruction of Earth's Ecosystem

Submitted by Leslie, New Jersey (not verified) on Sun Nov. 29, 2009 3:23 AM PST.

I have been following the information published about the destruction of our natural environment for four decades, and more recently about the warming of the earth.
I went back to college in the past few years to take courses on was is called atmospheric science, and have read extensively since then what different scientists have concluded
from their research. From what I have read and understood, there are essentially no
scientists in the field that say anything else then it appears that climate change is real
but it is not certain yet how quickly it is developing but in worse-case scenarios there
is a risk of a collapse of the entire earths's ecosystem, The common opinion is that
this change is in large part caused by CO2 but even other influences play a role but
it is not clear yet how much. The 'skeptics', and there are very few, say that the
models and data are not conclusive, which is of course admitted by the leading
researchers. The questions then perhaps is not a scientific one, but rather if we
should be playing this game when it is clear that essentially all of the world's best atmospheric scientiists say we might be potentially be heading for the end of
humankind as we know it. While it may not happen, why is it that our leaders
and the majority of the population seem not to seem to care what happens?
I suggest the problem is at the psychological level, and therefore no facts or
reason will reach these people. People will believe what they want to believe
until reality is staring them in the face, and even then some people will not
act. JFK wrote a book when he was in his twenties, While England Slept,
about the 'denial' of English politicians of the events that might very well
lead to a German attack. The 'facts' were not conclusive, but a few people
of influence started early to prepare for the worst, while the rest slept, or
denied that it would happen. The same is happening today. A new book
might be written, While The Governments of the World and Most of the
Population Slept, published after the death of most of humankind, which
by some 'worst case' estimates could be at the end of this century.