"Wal-Mart: The [1] New Washington [1]" in the Sunday Week in Review is another ironic celebration by business reporter Michael Barbaro of the "retailing behemoth" (his [2]words [2]) learning to play the Washington game by going native and pleasing liberalsin order todefenditself from further regulation. 
In Wal-Mart we trust? After years of criticism that it was a poor corporate citizen and miserly employer, maybe.
The company's transformation from a laggard to a leader on issues like health care and the environment can arguably be traced to two epiphanies. The first was that a wave of negative publicity threatened to alienate consumers and block the opening of new stores.
For decades, Wal-Mart was associated with low wages, skimpy health insurance coverage and poor treatment of workers - and not without reason. An internal memorandum in 2005 showed that though Wal-Mart earned $10 billion a year, 46 percent of its workers' children were uninsured or on Medicaid [3].
Relying only on Barbaro's liberally slanted [4]stories,one wouldget the impression that Wal-Mart was in fact in the business of health care provider, not discount retailer.