Who's Behind the White House War on Fox News?

Townhall.com ^ | October 14, 2009 | Michelle Malkin

[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.

[ETL]

Fox should prepare for a good laugh if a dead fish shows up in their mailbox with a Whine House return address!!

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"In between his stints in Washington, Emanuel got rich working as an investment banker. He once sat on the board of Freddie Mac and recuses himself from any Congressional votes on the mortgage giant."

"Has been known to send out cheesecakes from Eli's Bakery in Chicago to campaign donors and the many Democratic candidates he has recruited over the years. Once, when a pollster made him angry, Emanuel sent him a dead fish."

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1856965,00.html
_________________________________________________________

(Sonny opens a package to find two fish wrapped in Luca's bulletproof vest.)

Sonny: What the hell is this?

Pete Clemenza: It's a Sicilian message. It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Godfather
_________________________________________________________

YouTube video clip: "Leave the gun. Take the cheesecake cannoli" (8 second clip)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EJnEXuUR54&NR=1

[houeto]

Uncanny resemblance!

[theDentist]

0bama is the Boss, so it’s HIS decision ultimately. And being a sneak and a coward, he’s hoping/arranging for the blame to fall on others.

[lentulusgracchus]

The major media outlets attacked George Bush relentlessly. How many times did the Bush White House lash out like the current one? There’s a lesson there somewhere...........

Note that the "embeds" who accompanied the Army in 2003 and reported in a "you were there" real-time arrangement with DoD were a lot less hostile to the Administration than the Washington Post pukes who came out later and showed up at firefight scenes and IED-explosion sites with their stories already 50% written, to plug local details and color into their political lies they were feeding the folks back home. WaPo's Baghdad man was especially noteworthy in this kind of reportage and in fact was outed in a 2004 or 2005 e-mail from an Army sergeant back home who saw what the guy was doing (which is as I've just described).

ABC's smart-butts don't include Martha Raddatz, who was there and saw a lot of the rough stuff and saw our people in the field manning up to handle the jihadis and Al-Q'aeda. She has great admiration and compassion for our military people in the field, and it shows. She's a patriot (bite on that, Carville!).

As to the question of Administration response, yes, the Bush Administration's response to press lies was very different from Obama's responses to challenge. But then, the 'Ratmedia handed the Administration its head on public trust. The press denigration of Mr. Bush was very, very successful.

Their 'Rat Boy now sits in the White House, plotting Marxist "revolution from above" on the American People. That's how successful their lying invective was. Bush accomplished his Administration's war goals, but a 'Rat sits in the White House trying to figure out how to betray our success and still get away with pushing the inevitable blame on someone else, so he can go on to become an American Lenin.

[Neverforget01]

I honestly think the attack on Fox News is a foil to distract folks from the healthcare debate. Fox News should treat the White House as one would treat a child-ignore the attacks. The more they are discussed, the more credibility they receive.

Just report the news. This is not news.

[lentulusgracchus]

Good post, thanks for the links.

BTTT.

[ETL]

Thanks, and you’re welcome. Lots more like it on my FR Home page. :)

[astounded]

I don’t understand why anyone is afraid of Rahm Emanuel. He is a 5’5” ballet dancing puss* whose claim to fame is that he rides the coattails of other politicians to power. The guy is a jerk loser who would be running a 7-11 or Dunkin Donuts if he were not in politics.

[ravingnutter]

Here you go:

[Servant of the Cross]

Anita and Robert, a liberal partnership, straight out of central casting.

[Budge]

I think we are all giving Mr. obamo more credit than he is due.

It is my opinion that 0bam0 is nothing more than a puppet of a group of communist/socialist led by none other than George Soros.

Someone please prove me wrong!

[capt. norm]

This is the lovely and talented Ms. Dunn:

I'm thinking her brother or cousin had to take her to the Senior Prom.

[Ann Archy]

Thanks!!! He DOES look like Hitler!!

[silverleaf]

Now that is just scary.

Who’da thunk a family of Palestine Jews (Russian or eastern European emigrants?) would produce a ballet dancer who looks so much like Goebbels? (and has his political instincts and loving nature, too)

[silverleaf]

She was too busy reading Saul Alinsky’s book in a coffeehouse to go to the prom.

[cranked]

Axelrod, Rahm, Jarrett, etc.

[dtrpscout]

Typical Bolshevik tactics. Feh!