This megalomaniacal White House can’t help themselves; they are so impressed with their own cleverness and power that they can’t stop bragging about it.
First we have the charming and accomplished Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director, explaining how this administration works by describing how they manipulated the media during the campaign:
Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control," said Dunn.
"One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters," said Dunn, referring to Plouffe, who was Obama's chief campaign manager.
"We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it," Dunn said.
To be fair, this speech was made last January, when Team Obama was still reveling in their glorious victory. But then, it was Ms. Dunn who launched the White House assault on FOX last week, calling them an “arm of the Republican Party” and “opinion journalism masquerading as news”
Wow. Even some of the MSM are smart enough to see that this is headed into Hugo Chavez territory and are waving the White House off. But not the enlightened White House. They sent the attack dogs out again yesterday to lob even larger bunker bombs: Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod on the Sunday morning shows (FOX excepted, of course). They’ve determined that FOX News is no longer to be considered a real news network. And they “advise” (and we know what that means in Chicago) all the “real,” i.e. supportive, news media to dismiss FOX as well.
White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told CNN that President Obama does not want "the CNNs and the others in the world [to] basically be led in following Fox."
Obama senior adviser David Axelrod went further by calling on media outlets to join the administration in declaring that Fox is "not a news organization."
"Other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way," Axelrod counseled ABC's George Stephanopoulos. "We're not going to treat them that way."
After the shows, Rahmbo and Axe-man gave all the good little anchors a nice rub behind the ears.
Meanwhile, over at MSNBC, Keith Olberman, Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow are shoe-ins ( “Chicago-style ”) for Emmy’s and Edward R. Murrow awards this year. All in the category of “non-opinionated journalism.” I don’t think congratulations are premature.
