Anita Dunn

Clever Analogy: Cal Thomas Likens White House Attacks on Fox News to Soviets Jamming Voice of America During Cold War
By Jeff Poor | October 24, 2009 | 11:25 PM EDT

There's little doubt that at hand is an ongoing effort by the Obama White House to marginalize the Fox News Channel - especially after the administration attempted to leave Fox out of the White House pool last week. That is something conservative columnist Cal Thomas said is eerily comparable to Cold War tactics of the old Soviet Union.

On the Fox News Channel's Oct. 24 "Fox News Watch," Thomas alluded to an Oct. 21 column he wrote, which he compared what the Soviets did with radio signals that penetrated the Iron Curtain to deliver a message of freedom from Western Europe - they jammed them.

"I wrote a column on this, this week - if I can promote myself and my own column," Thomas said. "I likened it to what happened during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union especially tried to jam the signals of the Voice of America and Radio Europe, other entities that were trying to pump truth into the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc countries, the so-called captive nations."

'This Is The First Step Toward Single-Payer: I Admit That'
By Mark Finkelstein | October 21, 2009 | 8:15 PM EDT

Barack Obama likes to claim he believes in the free market, even as he lards his administration with what Hugh Hewitt has delightfully dubbed "Mickey Maoists" like Anita Dunn and Ron Bloom.

But Ed Schultz has given away the game.  On his MSNBC show this evening, Schultz said of ObamaCare: "this is the first step toward single-payer. I admit that."

Here's Schultz's full statement . . .

Unlike Nixon, Obama's Media Attacks Generate Little Press Anger
By Lachlan Markay | October 20, 2009 | 4:25 PM EDT
Is Barack Obama turning into Spiro Agnew? The White House's attacks on the Fox News smack of the distaste for media opposition espoused by Nixon's vice president almost 40 years ago but are being met with a decidedly different reaction today by the elite media.

Pundits have wondered aloud since last week why the White House would pursue a strategy that seems to be boosting the ratings of a purported 'opposition' news network. MSNBC's Joe Scarborough posited today that the White House's attacks on Fox News are designed to prevent the mainstream media from picking up on stories damaging to the administration (video embedded below the fold, h/t to NB reader Kirk W.).

Every time Fox breaks a story on the radical connections of a White House advisor or appointee, the news is potentially damaging to the administration. But damage is only really done if the rest of the media picks up on the story, reports it, and turns it into a national news sensation, a la Van Jones.
Anita Dunn: How We Created Obama's Cult of Personality
By Candance Moore | October 20, 2009 | 10:45 AM EDT

For months NewsBusters has been reporting how the media aided and abetted the creation of Barack Obama's Cult of Personality leading to his eventual election as the 44th President of the United States.

Eight days before his inauguration, Obama's Fox News-hating communications director Anita Dunn and his digital strategist Ben Self, while at a conference in the Dominican Republic hosted by the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development, confirmed the allegation in a tutorial they gave to President Leonel Fernandez and other government officials and guests on how to turn an unknown politician into a messiah.

On Sunday, World News Daily uncovered one of the nine videos recorded that day which gave clues as to how the Obama campaign successfully manipulated the media to force his cult like status upon an unknowing public (video of part 8 embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t NBer Free Stinker):

Helen Thomas Warns White House to Quit Attacking Fox News
By Lachlan Markay | October 19, 2009 | 3:38 PM EDT
Veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas, who has covered every president since Jack Kennedy, advised the White House to abandon their attacks on Fox News today. She attributed the administration's visceral reaction to the cable outlet to a naive sense of invincibility generally held by new presidents (video embedded below the fold).

Asked by Joe Scarborough of MSNBC's 'Morning Joe' what "we want our president to know and do," in reference to the title of her new book, Thomas immediately replied "stay out of these fights... They can only take you down. You can't kill the messenger."

Thomas's coauthor, CQ reporter Craig Crawford, added that "presidents are better off, Joe, when they punch up and not down."
Anita Dunn and Mao: Establishment Press Predictably Mostly Muzzled
By Tom Blumer | October 18, 2009 | 4:08 PM EDT
AnitaDunnThis won't surprise anyone who reads this blog regularly, but it needs to get on the record nonetheless: The airing of a June video showing interim White House Communications Director Anita Dunn praising Mao and Mother Teresa as "two of my favorite philosophers" to a group of high school students is barely news in the establishment press.

In an August 2008 report on the Obama campaign, Anne E. Kornblut of the Washington Post also described Dunn as "as senior adviser" who had joined the campaign "in the spring."

Roger Kimball at Pajamas Media has the video of Dunn's speech. NB's Jeff Poor (covering Glenn Beck's original broadcast that broke the story) and P.J. Gladnick (on Dunn's pathetic attempt to excuse herself) have previously dealt with Dunn's speech.

Here are the Mao-relevant portions of the speech excerpt:

Rahm Emanuel: Fox Isn't a News Organization Because it Has a Perspective
By Noel Sheppard | October 18, 2009 | 10:42 AM EDT

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel Sunday made one of the most absurd comments to date about the Administration's fight with the Fox News Channel.

In his "State of the Union" interview with CNN's John King, Emanuel said, "It's not a news organization so much as it has a perspective."

Maybe more importantly, Emanuel told King that the White House doesn't want other news outlets to emulate Fox because the cabler isn't offering "both sides' sense of a valued opinion" (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t NBer Melody):

Anita Dunn Blames Lee Atwater for Quoting Mao
By P.J. Gladnick | October 17, 2009 | 11:33 AM EDT

"Taken out of context!"

"You just didn't understand the irony!"

"Just kidding!"

The incredibly lame excuses those on the left come up with to try to explain away statements they made that have come back to haunt them is growing more hilarious by the day. Robert Reich clearly stated at a 2007 Berkeley lecture what an honest candidate for president who didn't worry about getting elected would say to senior citizens who face costly treatment to keep them alive: "It's too expensive...so we're going to let you die."

Reich's excuse for this and other bizarre health care statements by a hypothetical honest candidate for president? He was being "taken out of context" despite the fact that Reich himself originally put it into perfectly clear context to the point that his Berkeley audience was applauding in approval of the brutal "truths."

It would be hard to exceed the absurdity of Reich's laughably lame excuse but White House Communications Director makes a good stab at it in trying to explain away why she favorably  quoted Mao Tse Tung as one of her favorite political philosophers. Her unbelievably laughable excuse? She was only following in the footsteps of deceased Republican campaign strategist Lee Atwater who also quoted Mao. Before we get to Dunn's Lee Atwater excuse bellylaugh, let us review what she said about Mao:

Beck Strikes Back: Uncovers Video of Obama Communications Director Claiming Mao One of Her ‘Favorite Political Philosophers'
By Jeff Poor | October 15, 2009 | 7:02 PM EDT

The feud between the White House and the Fox News Channel took another, thanks to one of Glenn Beck's viewers.

On Beck's Oct. 15 program, the Fox News host played a video sent to him of White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, who had previously slammed Fox News and called it an organ of the Republican Party. In the video, Dunn reveals her two favorite political philosophers - humanitarian Mother Teresa and Mao Tse Tung, Chinese revolutionary and Communist leader responsible for an estimated 70 million deaths (video embedded below the fold).

"A lot of you have a great deal of ability," Dunn said. "A lot of you work hard. Put them together and that answers the ‘why not' question. There's usually not a good reason and then the third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers - Mao Tse Tung and Mother Teresa, not often coupled with each other but the two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point, which is you're going to make choices. You're going to challenge. You're going to say why not. You're going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before, but here's the deal."

Brit Hume Fires Back at White House Attacks on Fox News: Calls It 'Risky Strategy'; Says 'Republican' Label Intentional
By Jeff Poor | October 13, 2009 | 1:28 AM EDT

It's obvious the Obama administration has a low regard for Fox News as a media outlet - whether it has been President Barack Obama hinting at what he has thought about Fox News, the administration passing over Fox News in a recent round of Sunday morning interviews or as White House communications director Anita Dunn recently has done - just declare open season on the network.

However Brit Hume, now a senior political analyst for Fox News and regarded as a veteran figure at the news organization, took the White House head on. In his "Brit Hume Commentary" segment on Fox News Channel's Oct. 12 "Special Report with Bret Baier," Hume, pointed out this "feud" the Obama administration has decided to elevate is a bad idea.

"Every president ends up disgusted with the news media in general and with certain individuals or outlets in particular, but there is an old adage often attributed to Mark Twain that advises against picking fights with people who buy ink by the barrel," Hume said. "He is speaking of the big media of his day, which were newspapers."

Neil Cavuto Slams Anita Dunn: Let's Pretend You Work for the President and Not Some Left-wing Blog
By Noel Sheppard | October 12, 2009 | 10:55 PM EDT

If White House communications director Anita Dunn thought she was going to get away with attacking the Fox News Channel without a response from the objects of her disaffection, she was sadly mistaken.

As NewsBusters previously reported, Dunn told CNN's Howard Kurtz on Sunday that Fox is "a wing of the Republican Party" and "not a news network at this point."

On Monday, FNC's Neil Cavuto answered Dunn, and did so in a fashion that should make all those opposing the Obama administration's position on this matter quite pleased.

In fact, I can't wait to see how the astoundingly thin-skinned White House will respond to this (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t Story Balloon):

Irony Alert: White House Praises 'Unbiased' CNN as Network Runs Promo Appealing to Democrats
By P.J. Gladnick | October 12, 2009 | 10:14 AM EDT

(UPDATE: Apparently there was a drowned out Republican voice in the promo. See full update below.)

The irony in this story is so delicious, as NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard would probably describe it, that one must take a bit of time to savor it.

Yesterday, Sheppard posted a story about White House communications director Anita Dunn whining at length on Howard Kurtz's "Reliable Sources" about how supposedly unfair Fox News is. Her appearance on that show was instigated by Dunn's complaints about White House coverage by Fox News in a Time magazine story by Michael Scherer. Among her attacks upon Fox News was the assertion that it wasn't a real news network "the way CNN is." Well, Michael Scherer himself wrote a followup blog post and pointed out the supreme irony of attacking Fox News as biased while CNN was running "Anderson Cooper 360" promos pitching that show as appealing to liberals. First Scherer quotes Anita Dunn from her "Reliable Sources" appearance:

But let's be realistic here, Howie.  You know, they are widely viewed as, you know, part of the Republican Party.  Take their talking points, put them on the air.  Take their opposition research, put them on the air and that's fine. But let's not pretend they're a news network the way CNN is.