Don’t get excited: Anita Dunn is not being thrown under the bus
President Obama with Anita Dunn, David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, and Robert Gibbs (via White House Flickr stream)
A month ago, White House interim communications director Anita Dunn stepped into the role of lead Fox News-basher.
She’s handing the reins over to her young protégé and fellow Tom Daschle flack, Dan Pfeiffer.
Dunn never planned to stay in the role permanently. So don’t mistake this for a Van Jones-style under-the-bus disappearance. She may be cutting back and switching seats (she remains as a consultant), but she’s not going anywhere.
I profiled Dunn, Pfeiffer, and the rest of the press shop here. Quick refresher:
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 manger 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 protégé 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 – 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 Barack 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.
Keep an eye on Bauer, who has been rumored for more than a month to be in line for Greg Craig’s job as WH counsel.
See what others have said
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
 |
Nancy Pelosi Explains Why Obama Flip-Flopped on Super PACs
February 9, 2012 10:08 PM by Doug Powers
50 Comments
Report: Solyndra Sold Assets Cheap to Entity with Close Ties to Investors
February 9, 2012 10:08 AM by Doug Powers
49 CommentsFormer Democrat Rep. Regrets Vote for Obamacare Due to Contraceptive Coverage
February 7, 2012 03:40 PM by Doug Powers
75 Comments
Middle Class Payroll Tax Cut Extension Comes Courtesy of Mortgage Fees on Home Buyers
February 6, 2012 01:36 PM by Doug Powers
35 CommentsHiring Spree in NYC
February 1, 2012 02:47 PM by Doug Powers
43 CommentsMr. and Mrs. Cranky Pants
January 27, 2012 10:35 AM by Michelle Malkin
138 CommentsStimulus-Backed ‘Green’ Bankruptcy of the Week: Ener1
January 26, 2012 03:06 PM by Doug Powers
67 Comments
Obama and Jan Brewer Have Words on Airport Tarmac; Update: Brewer Book Sales Skyrocket
January 25, 2012 09:54 PM by Doug Powers
165 Comments
Warren Buffett’s Secretary to Sit with First Lady at State of the Union Speech
January 24, 2012 12:35 PM by Doug Powers
93 Comments
Categories: Barack Obama,Tom Daschle
Pundit & Pundette
» Bishop Jenky, Nicki Minaj, and the "98%"JustOneMinute
» We Hear From The Department Of Good Ideas And False ChoicesHot Air
» GOP budget leaders: The president’s fourth straight budget flop underscores need for reformPundit & Pundette
» Obama's war on conscience, cont'dRedstate
» Media Matters
Well, I guess we’re done with Dunn!
No, we’re not.
Darn!
This administration refuses to be Mao-Maoed!
Obama’s shell game.
Who gets the red phone number now?
Maybe she will be our ambassador to the UN.
Wooden stake, not a fork.
Damn. I was standing by to pipe her ashore.
I remember how euphoric I felt when Daschel was defeated! I could have never envisioned this day where we have dozens, maybe hundreds of people in the WH who are even worse than that pond scum bottom feeding piece of garbage!! The euphoria is long gone, and I pray I will get a chance to experience it again some day!
Don’t despair, Dan, Dunn, Daschle don’t do diddley. Dios’ devine design declares dominion!
How many fruits in that picture?
Not counting the nuts and bad bananas.
Anita Dunn gives new definition to the phrase “tongue wagging”!
Yeah, the way this administration works, you can’t just look at the official org chart. I maintain Van Jones never left, just switched out to a private group that is calling the shots on the Obama agenda. Eventually they’ll get the picture, that they need ostensibly acceptable people in the public role being manipulated from behind the scenes by the ones who really hold the power.
I am going to spin like our leader…..Beck kicked her to the curb…move over van, her comes lizard tongue.
Beck 2
Obama zillions more to go
What’s Gibby thinking about?
When I see that photo of the Oval Office, I can’t help but think it is an April 1st gag in my hometown newspaper. When I was a kid, people like those dedicated Marxists, “of dubious antecedence, and questionable progeny” wouldn’t even have been allowed to take the White House tour.
It’s kinds like church, if the members complain about the Pastor, the heirarchy gives them somebody worse.
Ragman’s nailed it.
Krauthammer recently described the ’08 election as an anomaly.
This picture epitomizes his take.
5 clueless overeducated dorks driving the Country over a cliff.
With Anita Dunn’s husband Robert Bauer rumored to become the next White House Counsel; is this a lateral move with Anita becoming the new bus driver? Someones got make sure these people stay under the bus.
they lost that number long ago….
The way I see it is this is a way for Dunn to still be a part of the Obama administration in all but official capacity.
Sorry – can’t type well. S/B It’s kinda like church…
Dunn is just being relocated.
She will now be under Oveur.
has she ever called Glenn Beck? with the red phone he set up?? I liked the way he closed his shows for a while…’good night mrs. dunn wherever you are’
Anybody and everybody associated with that Chicago thugocracy is going to be dirty so Dunn done gone or Dunn be here matters little. When the sewer backs up you don’t clean out just a little–it all has to go.
Not that I am comparing the Chicago thugocracy to a sewer-sewers serve a useful purpose. Every once in awhile we need to flush the line to get rid of the sledge build up. I do compare the Chicago thugocracy to the sludge build up in the sewer line. What damage that Chicago sludge will do until we can flush them out is to be seen.
too bad we can’t recoup some of our trade deficit with the Chinese and ship the entire white house staff to them in exchange for a few trinkets….that’s about all their worth….
Well said, AZ!! Well said!
Eh.
Not like Glenn’s phone ever rang anyway.
RWR
http://www.rightwingrocker.com
I doubt they even bothered to open the envelope.
We do know she signed for it, though.
RWR
http://www.rightwingrocker.com
I wonder if the “pizza-and-politics” sessions still occur in Axelrod’s apartment.
Perhaps Van Jones could now drop by with a case of Pepsi.
I sure wish my desk were as clean and clear as His Highness Obama…but then I’m not the President .
People like Dunn are never gone. They remain an integral part of “The Team.”
That pix looks like they are pondering how to exonerate the terrorist killer Nidal Hassan. They bemoan the fact that anyone with a damn brain views this as a terrorist attack. Commies all of them.
Speaking of boycotting Fox News…this happened coincidentally shortly after Imus joined FBN. Everyone remembers how MSNBC -CBS and WFAN and their advertisers were threatened with a boycott. Hmmm they couldn’t make a boycott of Glenn Beck work so they threatened a whole Cable News Channel with boycott.
The first day Imus broadcast he raised FBN’s morning slot rating by 1500%
ChannelXRFR is back blogging on Imus Times HERE.
http://imustimes.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/its-official-imus-is-awesome-on-fox-business-news/
Oh, pfooie! How pfrustrating!
here’s one that we should all get behind…
Operation Taco Bell (or mickey d’s or walmart or ??)
http://jeanettepryor.wordpress.com/2009/11/08/operation-taco-bell-hey-congress-would-you-like-some-hot-sauce-with-that-bill-you-just-passed/
ooops forgot the link to the online version to save some gas….
http://www.tacala.com/tacala-application.pdf
She just wants to spend more time with her little red book and wear her Mao suit full time.
Do all five half asses in the picture add up to one half wit?
please Michelle, PLEASE tell us that we won’t have to watch her speak before a camera again! Please? My children have developed a paranoid fear of lizards and reptiles of all types after watching her speak.
The wheels on the bus go thump, thump, thump.