Scary lookin' cousins, aren't they? It's in the eyes. Missing soul?
Posted on 10/14/2009 4:29:10 AM PDT by Kaslin
White House interim communications director Anita Dunn assumed the role of lead Fox News Channel-basher this weekend. The attack was a dud. The left-leaning Nation magazine ridiculed President Obama's press shop for turning him into the "whiner-in-chief." AOL media columnist Jeff Bercovici called the war on Fox a "loser's strategy" that "signals weakness." And that's the friendly fire.
Dunn found refuge in rival CNN's green zone, where she blasted Fox News as a "research arm of the Republican Party." Unhappy with headline-generating Fox News hosts who have wrested control of the news cycle from Team Obama, Dunn complained about "opinion journalism masquerading as news."
Well, that is certainly an apt description of an Obama-sympathizing "news" segment on "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer," which purported to "fact check" a Saturday Night Live skit mocking the president's lack of accomplishments.
Yes, the "real" news fact-checked the fake news to cover for Obama's deficiencies. Zero complaints from the White House communications office about that. Or about authentic CNN journalist Anderson Cooper using his prime-time show to make vulgar sexual jokes about Tea Party activists. Or about the joint White House-ABC News health care reform infomercial that aired earlier this summer.
Some "opinion journalism" is more equal than others.
Debates about the blurred lines between opinion and journalism are all well and good. But don't the talking-points crafters in the Oval Office have something better to do than carp about the talking points they don't like hearing on the one cable network that hasn't been completely overrun by Obama sycophants? (Full disclosure: I've been a Fox News contributor since 2001.)
Where are the seasoned press gurus to help Nobel Peace Prize-winner Barack Obama appear more presidential and less petty and thuggish?
The corruptocratic affiliations of Obama's communications team are illuminating. His press shop can't rise above the fray because they've been entrenched in the Beltway fray for years. They can't help themselves.
Democratic media consultant Dunn's claim to fame is her decade-long service as chief strategist for disgraced Democrat and former Senate Majority Leader turned health care lobbyist Tom Daschle. She was in the thick of his failed re-election campaign as Daschle asserted a bogus property-tax homestead exemption claim on his $1.9 million D.C. mansion -- which he listed as his primary residence despite voting in South Dakota and claiming it as his primary residence in order to run for re-election. And Dunn was with Daschle during the years he failed to pay gobs of taxes on a luxury car and driver provided to him by crony donor Leo Hindery Jr.
After working as communications manager for Obama's political action committee and then as senior adviser to his 2008 presidential campaign, Dunn "trained" White House press secretary and anti-Fox sniper Robert Gibbs. Deputy communications director Dan Pfeiffer is another young protege of Dunn's, who worked with her on the disastrous 2004 Daschle re-election campaign.
(Another Daschle connection: Obama transition adviser John Podesta, who served as Daschle's counselor and has helped staff the administration with many alumni of his left-wing think tank, the Center for American Progress. One CAP fellow, Hugo Chavez-admiring radical Mark Lloyd, has attacked conservative talk radio -- the second home of several Fox News hosts -- and is now the FCC's "Diversity Czar.")
Dunn is married to Robert Bauer, a Washington, D.C., corporate lawyer who served as general counsel for Obama for America. It was Bauer who lobbied the Justice Department unsuccessfully last fall to pursue a criminal probe of American Issues Project (AIP), an independent group that sought to run an ad spotlighting Obama's ties to Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers.
It was Bauer who attempted to sic the DOJ on GOP donor Harold Simmons and sought his prosecution for funding the ad. It was Bauer who tried to bully television stations across the country to compel them to pull the spot. All on Obama's behalf.
While conservatives revel in the left's hysteria over Fox News Channel's dominance, more of Obama's friends hope he'll wipe his nose and man up. Fat chance. As long as he's surrounded by career flacks who demonize dissent to distract from the Beltway stench, the White House will remain an all-whine zone.
And he was right
“That’s when I realized it was the ballet dancer all along”.
I agree with you completely, these are vindictive bastards who think they can bully anyone and everyone.
The old saying about the press was never learned by these folks, “don’t get in to a war of words with someone who buys ink by the barrel”.
FOX has a lot of hours a day to engage you in a fight.
David Axelrod. He thinks he’s still working with the Chicago ‘press’ and can push them around.
It was a Wizard of Oz reference and sarcasm with an eye on the shameful state of other media outlets.
AH! So she admits that Fox News is doing research, unlike the other networks who are merely serving as microphones!
I found these two paragraphs particularly telling:
Dunn is married to Robert Bauer, a Washington, D.C., corporate lawyer who served as general counsel for Obama for America. It was Bauer who lobbied the Justice Department unsuccessfully last fall to pursue a criminal probe of American Issues Project (AIP), an independent group that sought to run an ad spotlighting Obama's ties to Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers.
It was Bauer who attempted to sic the DOJ on GOP donor Harold Simmons and sought his prosecution for funding the ad. It was Bauer who tried to bully television stations across the country to compel them to pull the spot. All on Obama's behalf.
Sarcasm?
I get sarcasm...
While Kirsten Powers is a democrat, she is one that is mostly fair and balanced. Bob Beckel is the worst one who is employed by Fox News
Chicago thug in chief and his cohorts.
Michelle Malkin article, and all the photos are Rahm Emanuel and some other doofus?...
It’s true.
We’ve entered an alternate universe!
Absolute and total agreement.
LLS
“...the white house has declared war on Fox because they are insufficiently obsequious.”
and, possibly because they haven’t yet said, yes master.
IMHO
BUMP
Bob Beckel is bad because he is more likely to influence people, as opposed to an obvious loon like Marc Lamont Hill. But O'Reilly needs to confront Hill on his true beliefs: revolutionary communism, 'Black Liberation' (aka revolutionary communism, and his admiration for cops killers like revolutionaries Joanne Chesimard (aka Assata Shakur) and Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Normally, Michelle is right on target but, this time, I think she took aim and hit the sacrificial lamb. Dunn ain’t that bright. I see Rahmbo Emmanuel’s fingerprints on this one. It’s similar to the war that the Whine House waged earlier this year against Rush. Failed absolutely miserably!! The same will happen here.
The Whine House needs to deflect focus on zero and his lack of real accomplishments while collecting awards for doing NOTHING!!! So, to shift the focus from the Congress, cap ‘n tax (which has fallen quite noticeably off the radar!) and healthscare, they need a new boogyman. They’ve tried going after conservative bloggers like us and they’ve tried going after Rush. Neither of their previous efforts worked and this one won’t either.
Fox should prepare for a good laugh if a dead fish shows up in their mailbox with a Whine House return address!!
Separated at birth! YIKES! And David Axelrod looks like HITLER with that Hair and moustache!! Do you have a side-bu-side for the Ax??
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