FORTUNE -- Corporate chiefs may seem hardboiled, but they can be sensitive, too. Take the ruckus they've been raising over what they perceive to be rough treatment from the Obama White House.

The bubbling resentment of the administration among top corporate brass burst into the open in late June, when Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) CEO Ivan Seidenberg addressed a lunchtime crowd gathered at a hotel in downtown Washington. "By reaching into virtually every sector of economic life, government is injecting uncertainty into the marketplace and making it harder to raise capital and create new businesses," he said.

The critique was remarkable because Seidenberg was speaking in his capacity as chairman of the Business Roundtable, a trade group representing 170 top CEOs and,...