And that seems to be the case for Immelt, who in addition to running GE is also Barack Obama's part-time "jobs czar." Immelt's not doing a very good job of creating jobs--unemployment is 8.8 percent, and it's been over 8 percent for more than two years now. So why does Immelt have a job? Because he's part of the Obama Machine; GE has been a big beneficiary on bailouts, and it wasn't for lack of trying that GE failed to get on the "cap and tax" gravy train. More recently, Immelt flew with Obama to Brazil, where Immelt was free to cut any side-deals he could, confident that the Brazilians would be "immpressed" by his clout.
Yet all this chumminess comes at a price. And the price is, people notice that the White House is playing favorites. In the past, The Cable Gamer has noted that such left-wing outfits as Moveon.org and Truthout.org have denounced Immelt for high-level cronyism. And now the right is joining in, too, as the Daily Caller's Amanda Carey reports this morning, under the headline, "Tea Party to take angst to GE shareholder meeting in Salt Lake City":
“Jeff Immelt is the face of government-corporate cronyism in America today,” said Russ Walker, VP of Political and Grassroots Campaigns at FreedomWorks. “As President Obama’s hand-picked chair of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, Immelt abandoned the tenets of free enterprise to lobby on behalf of rent-seeking General Electric, and restrict its competitors in the marketplace.”
All good points. We know that the Obama White House doesn't care about such corporate cronyism--in fact, the White House obviously likes it. The question is, do the American people care? And how about viewers of NBC/CNBC/MSNBC?
