Anti-Biz Obama 'Loathes Profit Motive': Barnes

“Anti-business may be too crude a label” for President Obama, Fred Barnes writes in the Weekly Standard, but America's leader certainly "has a dark view of profits." Surveying Obama's appointments, policies, and remarks about business, Barnes concludes that "Obama loathes the profit motive or at least what he thinks it causes.” Yet Obama maintains that "he's a free-market guy who hates 'meddling in the private sector.'"

In fact, the president has done “quite a bit to restrain” job growth by regulating banks, spanking credit card companies, and limiting executive bonuses, says Barnes. Obama's bailouts of GM and Chrysler betray a government-controls-business attitude that dismisses free markets. And his public comments, which favor nonprofits over profit-making, seal the deal for Barnes: "Given the evidence, rendering a verdict on Obama and business is easy." (More anti-business stories.)