BY JOHN FEEHERY

Reprinted from the Feeherytheory.com

If you are an American and you travel anywhere in the world in an 
official capacity, one of your first meetings is likely to be with the 
local American Chamber of Commerce.

Meeting with AmChams (as they are called) is an essential way to get a 
better understanding of how American businesses are doing in selling 
American products overseas. Members of AmChams (who are usually 
American) have an acute understanding of the local laws, the obstacles 
that foreign governments often place in the way of trade and the 
opportunities that exist for further investment.

AmChams are the tip of the spear when it comes to international trade. 
And without international trade, American business can’t grow. And if 
American businesses don’t grow, jobs don’t get created back here in 
the United States of America.

When President Obama talks about the supposed foreign influence that 
has infiltrated the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, he is talking about dues 
that are being paid by these AmChams back to the Chamber.

His argument is complete nonsense. It smacks of McCarthyism. The 
argument itself is delusional, and it makes me wonder if the president 
has taken leave of his senses.

Worse for the president, by attacking the Chamber of Commerce in such 
a violent way, he reveals his hatred for the private sector, which 
only serves to rile up his opponents even more.

The Chamber of Commerce is not an arm of the Republican Party. For 
example, it supported the president’s stimulus package. It supported 
the auto bailout. It supported the small-business loan program that 
the president signed last month.

The business of the Chamber is to support business, not support the 
Republican Party. But the Chamber finds itself supporting many more 
Republican candidates this election cycle because so many Democrats 
have taken an avowedly anti-business turn to the left, led by 
President Obama.

The Chamber has no choice, because the Democrats, with their agenda of 
higher taxes, more regulation, more litigation and more powerful labor 
unions, are seeking to Hugo Chavez the private sector.

The charge that comes from the president that shadowy groups may have 
an undue influence on this election is especially hypocritical, given 
that Obama won because of the influence of George Soros and his 
compadres.

We know that Soros and his friends in 2006 and 2008 spent hundreds of 
millions of dollars funding radical, left-wing groups like 
ThinkProgress and the Center for American Progress (ThinkProgress is 
the group that made the initial charges against the Chamber). These 
groups didn’t — and don’t — divulge their donors, but I didn’t hear 
Obama complain about them once during his campaign for president.

The president’s latest attack on the Chamber of Commerce shows one 
thing conclusively. He is losing it. And his team is going to lose the 
elections badly in less than four weeks.

Editor’s note:  John Feehery worked for former House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other Republicans in Congress. He is president of Feehery Group, a Washington-based advocacy.