WHITE HOUSE MAKES C.E.O.s PAY FOR LUNCH.
“Four of the most powerful business leaders in America arrived at the White House one day last month for lunch with President Barack Obama, sitting down in his private dining room just steps from the Oval Office. But even for powerful CEOs, there’s no such thing as a free lunch: White House staffers collected credit card numbers for each executive and carefully billed them for the cost of the meal with the president. The White House defended the unusual move as a way to avoid conflicts of interest. But the Bush administration didn’t charge presidential guests for meals, one former official said, and at least one etiquette expert found the whole thing unseemly – suggesting it was a serious breach of protocol”
Yikes. That is tacky.
2 comments:
But if these guys had been paid for by the WH and catered to, you better believe people would STILL complain. Apparently, it's a lose-lose situation.
NO WAY. Nobody cares about lunch. They care about the 787 billion dollars being spent on bailouts and stimulus. Charging for lunch is incredibly petty and pointlessly symbolic. But what's much worse, incredibly tacky. It I were a business leader, I'd snub the white house next time they invited me.
Imagine having folks over for a dinner party and then charging them? That's what this is.
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