New Strategy for Whole Foods in FTC Fight - December 19, 2008 By Mike Scarcella and Jeff Jeffrey Legal Times and Law.com Legal Newswire December 19, 2008 "Whole Foods Market is striking at the [Federal Trade Commission] in court, in Congress and in the press with a three-pronged strategy led by a prominent D.C. lawyer and a lobbying firm stocked with Democratic insiders. "The company says it has already spent more than $16 million ... to defend its $565 million merger with organic grocer Wild Oats. Now, it [has filed] a complaint ... in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that accuses the FTC of bias and due process violations. "In October [2008], Whole Foods retained ... Lanny Davis, an Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe partner and former special counsel to President Bill Clinton, to lead the effort to convince power brokers that Whole Foods is not getting a fair shake at the FTC. Davis, an outspoken surrogate of Hillary Clinton during her presidential campaign, has become the public voice of Whole Foods." To read the full article, click on the Title Line, above. See Also: Tuesday With Lanny A day in the life of Hillary Clinton's biggest fan. By Christopher Beam Slate Aug. 27, 2008 NOTE: Apparently, Christopher Beam has assimilated Slate's trademark hyper-archness into his own personality structure. Nevertheless he offers several intriguing vignettes of Lanny Davis's advocacy style: "[Davis] heads up the 'legal crisis communications' team at his law firm in Washington, D.C. Davis advocates something like radical honesty: 'Tell it early, tell it all, tell it yourself.' (If that sounds like a subtitle for a book, that's because it is.)" -- Linking to Davis's memoir, Truth To Tell: Tell It Early, Tell It All, Tell It Yourself: Notes from My White House Education, by Lanny Davis, The Free Press (NY, 1999)