Jeff Poor
Business & Media Institute
Tuesday , January 12th, 2010
Throughout former President George W. Bush’s two terms,
left-wingers often accused him of being too tied into big business,
which they claimed had influenced policy. Remember the outrage over Blackwater ties to the Bush administration?
However, now that a liberal is in the Oval Office, there’s not
quite the same push for accountability when it comes to potential
conflicts with big business.
On Jan. 6, The Washington Post reported Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC)
and the Intel Foundation were making a sizeable contribution to
President Barack Obama’s philanthropic campaign for STEM
(science, technology, engineering and math) education that Obama
launched in November.
“Intel Corp., based in Santa Clara, Calif., and the Intel
Foundation are committing $200 million in cash and in-kind support over
10 years for expanded teacher training and other measures,” Nick
Anderson wrote for the Post. “For instance, the company will
offer an intensive 80-hour math course to help U.S. elementary school
teachers, who are usually generalists, develop expertise.”
On the surface, that may appear to be a good thing, until you learn
that the Obama administration’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
has a pending antitrust suit against the tech giant that will test the
bureaucracy’s powers. Anderson omitted that important detail from
his Post story.
“The U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s case against Intel
Corp. (INTC) is likely to test whether the agency can resuscitate broad
FTC powers that have been used rarely and viewed skeptically by the
federal courts,” Brent Kendall wrote for Dow Jones Newswires on Dec. 17, 2009.
“Instead of suing Intel in federal court for antitrust
violations, the commission is bringing its case though an FTC
administrative proceeding based on the Federal Trade Commission Act,
which allows broader claims than federal antitrust law. A key provision
of the act, known as Section 5, prohibits unfair methods of
competition, and deceptive acts and practices in commerce.”
The chip manufacturer has been targeted on all fronts
for its alleged antitrust practices, by state attorneys general and
even by the European Union. And recently Intel agreed to pay $1.25
billion to rival company Advanced Micro Devices. However, the
Post’s neglect and/or reluctance to tie Intel’s
philanthropic endeavor to the Obama administration with the
company’s antitrust problems seems to be part of a larger trend
– one of which is the perception Obama administration gets too
favorable media treatment, as polls have indicated.
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