Lanny Davis defends Whole Foods:

"The John Mackey piece, which I actually helped him a little bit on, has really been distorted as often happened in the blogosphere where people have short attention span," Davis told me.

Davis represented Whole Foods in a case brought by the Federal Trade Commission, in which they charged that the upscale grocery store giant was engaging in monopolistic practices. Davis is a supporter of single payer health care, but, he says, disagreements with Mackey aside, Whole Foods is a progressive company that has instituted a strict cap on executive compensation and that provides 100 percent of their employees with health insurance.

Lanny is a partner in Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe and was a registered lobbyist for Whole Foods in the first quarter of 2009 for the low low price of $40,000.  Orrick filed a "termination report" on March 1 (PDF), but somehow Lanny was still trying to put together an anti-Employee Free Choice effort on behalf of Whole Foods and Starbucks in late March.  Lanny wanted to see if he could bring everyone together and get them to agree to EFCA just without card check or binding arbitration or anything included in the original bill, which lasted about 48 hours until the Chamber landed on his head and Lanny bailed.

According to a January 9 article on Bisnow, Lanny has a "SWAT team" that assists companies like Whole Foods that are "facing legal issues with a heavy PR element."  Lobbying against EFCA on Whole Foods’ behalf and then calling them a "progressive company" is a bit of a stretch.