Tom Donohue: Obama's Tormentor

[sasha031]

Source: Bloomberg

Two days before Halloween, a squadron of protesters from the radical feminist group CodePink showed up in front of the headquarters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C. The agitators, who were dressed as vampires, produced masks bearing the craggy visage of Thomas J. Donohue, the chamber's white-haired chief executive. Through the wonders of Photoshop, they had given him a wicked set of eyebrows, sharp fangs, and a red-stained mouth.
The 72-year-old Donohue could hear it all from his fourth-floor office, where he was trying not to gloat on the eve of a midterm election that was about to come out almost exactly as he hoped. "It sounds like our friends are here," he said.

The head of the Chamber of Commerce—the nation's largest business trade association, with an annual budget of $258 million—doesn't mind being called a bloodsucker or inspiring howls of protest. To the contrary, the opposition lets his members know he's doing his job—which makes them more likely to give money to his organization.

During the last two years, empowered by $350 million in donations from corporations such as Dow Chemical (DOW), Goldman Sachs (GS), Chevron Texaco (CVX), and many other anonymous sources, Donohue has emerged as President Obama's most effective antagonist. Almost every time the President introduced a major initiative, the chamber and its leader were primed to attack: New health-care laws imposed a "burdensome mandate on employers," and the Administration's Wall Street reforms would "choke off" business' access to capital. And don't get Donohue started on the White House's climate change proposals. It didn't matter that Obama helped resuscitate the banking system, bailed out auto manufacturers, and meddled far less with Wall Street than many of his supporters would have wished. Donohue tapped into a powerful vein of discontent within the business community and rode it like a rocket.

Read more: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_46/b4203070002219.htm

[ProudDad]

1. Check out the new boss

Just like the old boss...

Capitalist fuck...

[jgraz]

2. He's not Obama's tormentor

He's OUR tormentor. Never forget that he is the enemy.

[brentspeak]

4. Exactly. Donahue is America's tormenter, the Pied Piper of destroying the American working people

[ProudDad]

5. Very true, very true...

There's a class war going on and we're losing...

[Historic NY]

3. Getting those corporate name & making them public enemy would make them think next time.

[sasha031]

6. it's like a Martin Scorsese movie

they shake down Congress and the Senate, with threats that if they don't get what they want, the will destroy.
I can only imagine the anxiety our good Democrats feel when they see these gangsters walking down the hall.
I guess I didn't understand how bad it really is in washington. No wonder Feingold said he felt light and free after he lost.