"General Electric: The For-Profit Arm of the Obama Administration" -- that's the title of a 22-page chapter in Timothy P. Carney's new book, Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses.
Carney, who writes regularly for The Washington Examiner, has carved out a sort of beat for himself on the topic of corporate welfare and all that rent-seeking jazz. And as his GE chapter makes plain, the NBC media properties have been a central part of GE's rent-seeking strategy, helping Jeff Immelt's company get into bed with the federal government:
There's one more arm to the GE leviathan that takes this partnership to a new level. It's called NBC Universal. .. When you read this chapter, and learn just how dependent GE is on government favors, and just how significant is the overlap between GE's business and Obama's policy, you might consider in a new light [Chris] Matthews' post-election declaration that it's his job to "do everything I can to make this thing work--this new presidency work."
Given NBC's willingness, well before Obama's election, to turn to advocacy that would aid other GE businesses--like its "Green Week" and "Earth Week" programming--it's not a stretch to see Olbermann, Maddow, Matthews, and their MSNBC and NBC colleagues as GE public relations officials. And given GE's intimacy with government and the current president, it's also not a stretch to call GE the for-profit arm of the Obama administration.
Pow! Olby, Maddow and Matthews as "GE public relations officials." And that's just pgs. 194-5; there's plenty more.
So one might wonder: If NBCU is such an asset--from a lobbying point of view, if not a ratings point of view--why would GE be interested in selling it? Easy: GE has gotten what it needs. And Immelt & Co. are now afraid that the Republicans are going to reclaim power in Washington, starting in 2010, and that NBCU will be the object of much GOP vengefulness. So get out while the getting is good.
