What’s that you say, Mr. Alterman?

And here I thought corporations were conservative because they are corporations:

A report issued recently by the Capital Research Center in Washington punctures illusions that tend to associate big corporations with right-wing or conservative causes. The report depicts a reality that is exactly the opposite. CRC researchers examined contributions made in 2004 by the foundations of the nation’s top 100 corporations to nonprofit organizations. The result: Corporate contributions to left-leaning groups totaled $59 million and to right-leaning organizations $4 million. That’s about 14.5 corporate dollars going to the left for each dollar going to the right.

Never mind the tautology, the idea that Big Government and Big Business are fundamentally opposed isn’t a 20th century notion so much as it is a 19th century one. Saying that corporations are inherently conservative is like saying robots are inherently liberal; an artificial construct has no political alignment apart from those who control it.