Thread: Is this returning the favor for media bias

Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Stephanopoulos Has Participated in Daily Strategy Sessions With Emanuel Throughout His Tenure at ABC

James Carville, Rahm Emanuel, Paul Begala and George Stephanopoulos have been holding daily phone conversations for nearly 17 years.

Stephanopoulos has held these calls throughout his tenure at ABC.

Emanuel and Begala are both top officials in the Obama Administration.

The Media Research Center is demanding that ABC address and resolve the clear violation of journalistic ethics by ABC’s Chief Washington Correspondent George Stephanopoulos. Charles Johnson reported on this from the Media Research Center: http://www.mrc.org/press/2009/press20090204.asp

Media Research Center (MRC) President L. Brent Bozell, III has written a letter to ABC News President David Westin calling on him to publicly address and resolve what appears to be a clear violation of journalistic ethics by ABC’s Chief Washington Correspondent George Stephanopoulos. Last week a Politico story broke the news that Stephanopoulos has participated in daily phone strategy sessions with now White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel throughout his tenure at ABC.

Mr. Bozell on Thursday issued a statement demanding an explanation, and calling for Stephanopoulos to recuse himself from reporting on an Obama Administration whose plans and messaging he spends every morning helping to craft. Stephanopoulos has remained silent.

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/20...ipated-in.html

Obama bails out more media water-carriers
February 16, 2009 10:37 AM

The Chicago Tribune’s reporter Jill Zuckman takes a new job as assistant to the secretary and director of public affairs for Transportation Secretary nominee Ray LaHood. http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/...tary-ray-.html

Jill Zuckman, a Chicago Tribune Washington correspondent and frequent guest on political talk shows such as MSNBC's "Hardball" and Fox Broadcasting's "Fox News Sunday," is leaving to join President Barack Obama's administration in the Department of Transportation.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a Peoria Republican and former seven-term member of the U.S. House, has picked Zuckman to serve as assistant to the secretary and director of public affairs.

"I'm so excited about this. I think this is going to be really fun," Zuckman said by phone Sunday. "I'm excited about going to a department in the administration that's going to play a huge role in hopefully putting people back to work. There is so much money for transportation projects around the country, and I hope that that helps to stimulate the economy to get the country moving again."

Zuckman is the second Tribune Co. reporter in the nation's capital to accept a position with the new administration this month. Cissy Baker, vice president in charge of Tribune Co.'s recently unified Washington News Bureau, on Feb. 7 informed staff that Peter Gosselin, who previously had reported for the Los Angeles Times, accepted a job as chief speech writer for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.



"Jill is a terrific journalist and colleague who contributed much to our coverage of Congress, national politics and the 2008 presidential campaign," Chicago Tribune Editor Gerould Kern said by e-mail. "We wish her the best in her new assignment."

Zuckman reported on politics and Congress for the Tribune for the last 8 1/2 years, having previously worked for the Boston Globe, Congressional Quarterly and Milwaukee Journal.

A 2002 winner of the prestigious National Press Foundation's Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress and a 2007 honoree of the New Hampshire Political Library, Zuckman has covered four presidential campaigns, the Florida recount, the rise of Newt Gingrich, the Democrats' return to power and, most recently, the appointment of Roland Burris to the U.S. Senate.

"I had made the decision a while ago that it was time to leave journalism," Zuckman said. "In the course of my job search I discovered that Ray LaHood was looking for someone to join him at the Department of Transportation and I realized that would be a perfect fit for me because I've always admired LaHood's attempts at bipartisanship."

LaHood, who presided over the House of Representatives during the impeachment of then-President Bill Clinton in 1998, is one of two Republicans in President Obama's cabinet. Defense Secretary Robert Gates remains in that post from the previous administration.

Zuckman said that the possibility of working for LaHood was a recent development, but she was mindful of potential conflicts of interest during that time. "I was acutely aware that I needed to be careful not to get involved in stories where there would be a conflict," she said.

Another Tribune Co. writer and former LA Times reporter Peter Gosselin grabbed a job as chief speech writer for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

That’s in addition to former Time reporter Jay Carney, now VP Joe Biden’s communications director
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1208/16600.html

Jay Carney is leaving Time magazine after 20 years to be Vice President-elect Joe Biden's communications director in the White House, astonished magazine and gleeful transition sources said.

Carney's title will be assistant to the vice president and director of communications. TIME.com's "The Page" first reported his new job.

Carney, the magazine's Washington bureau chief, is one of Washington's best-known talking heads, with regular appearances on ABC's "This Week," "The McLaughlin Group" and MSNBC's "Hardball."

Biden has assembled a team of heavyweights: Ron Klain, who was chief of staff to former Vice President Al Gore, as chief of staff; Mike Donilon, one of Washington's best-connected Democratic consultants, as counselor; and Tony Blinken, a longtime Biden adviser, who is expected to fill a senior role on the National Security Council or on Biden's staff.

A Democratic official close to the selection process said Carney had already decided to do something different after the election, and Biden advisers believed Carney would bring "a fresh perspective" to their deliberations.

"It's an adventure," the official said. "Everybody thought it was an interesting idea and worth the risk. You never know how guys in your business are going to do in politics or the private sector."

The official added: "There are those on the right who will see this as the embodiment of their assertions about the media and Obama, and this is just making it official."

Carney, a Yale graduate, is known as a middle-of-the-road, well-connected journalist with establishment instincts. But back in 2000, he closely covered the guerilla presidential odyssey of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Carney and his wife, Claire Shipman, the senior Washington correspondent for ABC's "Good Morning America," have two children — a son, Hugo, and daughter, Della.

This is the second member of the media elite who has signed on with Obama's administration. ABC News correspondent Linda Douglass joined the campaign as traveling spokeswoman, and now is working for Obama's Presidential Inaugural Committee.

Officials said the conversations with Carney arose in part from his friendship with Blinken.

Carney telephoned members of his staff individually on Sunday night to tell them he was leaving the magazine.

Managing Editor Richard Stengel announced Carney's departure in a staff-wide memo on Monday morning, but did not say what he was doing.

Stengel said in the memo, which was obtained by Politico's Michael Calderone: "After twenty extraordinary years at TIME, Jay Carney is moving on to a new challenge. Jay has been pretty much everywhere for us. He started as Miami bureau chief and then became a correspondent in Moscow before landing in Washington and eventually becoming bureau chief. He was in Havana when Mikhail Gorbachev first visited in 1989; he was on the first plane of journalists into Panama for the U.S. invasion that same year; in 1991, he was at the television tower in Vilnius, Lithuania, when Soviet tanks rolled in, and in Red Square when they rolled again during the failed coup that led to the Soviet Union’s demise. On 9/11, he was aboard Air Force One with President Bush.

"He had two stints covering the White House and excelled in his coverage of the McCain 2000 campaign and of the Clinton impeachment. As a reporter and as bureau chief, he always fought for fairness and balance in our coverage whether it was of the left or the right. He is a superb journalist, an exemplary bureau chief and he also happens to be one of the pleasantest and most decent guys in our business. We wish him well in his new endeavors, which we will hear about shortly."

Before becoming bureau chief in 2005, Carney was White House correspondent and deputy bureau chief. His byline in the magazine was "James Carney," in deference to his mother.

From his Time bio: "Before coming to Washington in 1993 to report on the Clinton White House, he served as a correspondent in TIME's Moscow Bureau for three years, covering the collapse of the Soviet Union. Prior to that he was TIME's Miami bureau chief. Carney has also served as a special correspondent for CNN ... A native Virginian, Carney earned a B.A. in Russian and Eastern European Studies from Yale University in 1987."

( more ... )

Former ABC correspondent Linda Douglass, who worked on the Obama campaign and will be HHS assistant secretary for public affairs.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/...s.1-421684.php

WASHINGTON: Republicans have long accused mainstream journalists of being on the payroll of President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party, a common refrain of favoritism, especially from those on the losing end of an election.

But this year the accusation has a new twist: In some notable cases it has become true, with several prominent journalists now on the payrolls of Obama and Democratic congressional leaders.

An unusual number of journalists from prominent, mainstream organizations started new government jobs in January, providing new kindling to the debate over whether Obama is receiving unusually favorable treatment in the news media.

These are not opinionated talkers in the vein of Chris Matthews, the television host who flirted last year with a run for the Democratic nomination for the Senate from Pennsylvania - and who more recently said he would do "everything I can to make this thing work" for Obama.

Rather, they are, for the most part, more traditional journalists from organizations that strive to approach the news with objectivity.

Jay Carney, the new communications director for Vice President Joseph Biden Jr., was, until late last year, the Washington bureau chief at Time magazine, where he covered the campaign and, coincidentally, was a co-author of an article in September titled, "McCain's Bias Claim: Truth or Tactic?"

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the leading candidate for surgeon general, is CNN's chief medical correspondent. His resume as a practicing neurosurgeon - and one of People magazine's "sexiest men alive" in 2003 - is not that of a traditional journalist. But he reported on the health records of the presidential candidates last year, along with their health care proposals.

Should he get the job, Gupta will be working for the Department of Health and Human Services, whose prospective assistant secretary for public affairs is Linda Douglass, a longtime television network news correspondent who left journalism for Obama's campaign last spring.

On Capitol Hill, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts has hired Douglas Frantz as his chief investigator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Frantz is a former managing editor of The Los Angeles Times and before that was an investigative reporter there, at The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune.

Administration officials report they have had discussions with other print journalists looking for work as their news organizations begin to shed jobs.

The changes also give fodder to conservatives who have long complained that mainstream journalists are sympathetic to the views of Democrats.

"It is, I think, indicative of a certain affinity," said Rich Lowry, the editor of the conservative magazine National Review. "You would not have seen so many people from mainstream outfits going to work for John McCain."

It is not a one-way street. The administration of George W. Bush had as a press secretary the late Tony Snow, who had been in and out of journalism for years, though he spent much of his career as an opinion writer. In 2007, the Bush administration hired Geoff Morrell, a former ABC News White House correspondent, as a Pentagon spokesman. Morrell has stayed on in the Obama administration, under Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Some of those who are heading into government say they do not see their new jobs as particularly partisan.

As the chief investigator of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Frantz said he was acting much like an investigative reporter, but with two potential tools he could only dream about having previously: subpoena power and, should his application be accepted, security clearance to review classified data.

Frantz, who left The Los Angeles Times as it was changing owners in 2007, said he was ready for a career change. But he acknowledged, "If the newspaper industry were more robust, I would hope to still be managing editor of The Los Angeles Times."

Carney, the former Time bureau chief who now works as Biden's spokesman, said he did not view his job as particularly political either, given his boss's promise of bipartisanship. "This is a Democratic administration. We're obviously on that side of the aisle, but I don't see this as a partisan job at all," Carney said in an interview.

He acknowledged having "an affinity for Joe Biden and Barack Obama."

But he said it never influenced his coverage of the presidential campaign, as evidenced, he said, by the angry notes he often received from liberals last year concerning his coverage.

It’s Obama own little MSM Bailout Program. http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.co...ter-joins.html

Stimulating…

Of course there will be no media backlash about the media darling paying back said media for the favors bestowed upon Obama during his campaign. It was painfully obvious to many that during the campaign Obama was given preferential treament. It was clear that there would be no digging into the past of his co-conspiritors.

The stimulus bill will prove out the ties that bind Obama, both to corrupt politics and an elitist media. I only wonder how long it will take those who truly believed the BS to see the truth. I honestly think that the people who wanted anyone but a Republican in office also saw this obvious white wash, but there were people who actually believed in Change. In Hope. They are the ones I feel for.

I’m not sure I can take much more of the “fawning” press. I barely watch the network news programs anymore; I simply can’t do it! I try, and 5 minutes later, my blood is boiling so much, I have to turn it off. I can only count on Rush and MM and others to tell me what is going on. And when I see videos of some of these “tools” in the msm, I am sickened. There is no longer any pretense at non-biased reporting. They don’t care who knows it. It will be interesting to see how they react to threats of the “fairness” doctrine. This would hurt them big time! And of course, they are losing viewers along with their credibility.

At ABC, Terry Moran was downright libidinous when he interviewed Obama. After prefacing his question with an editorial about how partisan the Republicans are, Moran asked Obama: “Are you too nice to be president?” Obama chuckled and then bragged that: “Well I’m the one getting on Air Force One”.

Moran and Obama flirted like two girlfriends just back from a semester of college. Moran even smiled coyly at Obama’s reference to him as “Terry”. Moran seemed enraptured to be in the presence of The One. Moran even asked Obama what it was like to be a nonpartisan president when he (Obama) has to deal with Republicans who won’t be nonpartisan.



Terry has had it bad for Obama for a long time. Strap on your barf bag and click here for this breathless, Moranic report (which I believe is from 2006, because it was before he announced he was running for POTUS) http://sweetonobama.mrc.org/?page_id=32 .

Obama chuckled and then bragged that: “Well I’m the one getting on Air Force One”.

Every time Obama makes a “I won” reference, he comes off as really immature.

Dem exclusive? Reporters jump ship
By: Michael Calderone
February 18, 2009 04:35 AM EST

In three months since Election Day, at least a half-dozen prominent journalists have taken jobs working for the federal government.

Journalists, including some of those who’ve jumped ship, say it’s better to have a solid job in government than a shaky job — or none at all — in an industry that’s fading fast.

But conservative critics answer with a question: Would journalists be making the same career choices if John McCain had beaten Barack Obama in November?

“Obama bails out more media water-carriers,” conservative blogger Michelle Malkin wrote upon hearing that the Chicago Tribune’s Jill Zuckman is taking a job with the Obama administration.

Blogs at both the Weekly Standard and the National Review are pointing to a “revolving door” that spins between the media and the Obama administration. And while Brent Bozell, president of the conservative Media Research Center, acknowledges that financial troubles may be forcing reporters out of newsrooms, he thinks it’s worth noting where they’re going.

“When some leave journalism because of a reduction in staff, what’s the natural landing spot?” The Obama administration,” Bozell charged.

Zuckman says it’s not so.

In an interview, she said that she began looking around for a new job last month, motivated by the grim state of the industry — her employer, the Tribune Co., recently slashed its D.C. bureau — and also by her own feeling that she’d accomplished what she’d set out to do covering politics.

See also
The maestro and the meltdown
Obama shifts focus to Afghanistan
Senate Ethics may investigate Burris
She said she had no plans to go to the administration — until she heard about an opening under Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a former Republican representative she’s long respected for reaching across the aisle.

So, would Zuckman have taken — or even been offered — such a job if McCain were president?

“I have a great deal of respect for [McCain] and have thoroughly enjoyed covering him over the years,” Zuckman said. “But there’s no way I can answer your hypothetical because I wouldn’t know who he would have chosen for secretary of transportation. My decision to go to work for the Obama administration is tied up in my relationship with Ray LaHood and his focus on getting the economy back on track.”

As for other reporters making similar moves, Zuckman said that she didn’t think there would be so many “if the industry were stable.”

But it isn’t, and there are.

On Tuesday, Cox’s Scott Shepard joined Sen. John Kerry’s office as a speechwriter, becoming the second journalist this year to take a job under the Massachusetts Democrat. Investigative reporter Doug Frantz is now chief investigator under the Kerry-helmed Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

A week before Zuckman announced that she’s headed for Obama’s Transportation Department, her Tribune colleague Peter Gosselin signed on as speechwriter for Obama’s treasury secretary, Tim Geithner.

In December, Jay Carney relinquished his perch as Time’s Washington bureau chief to become Vice President Joe Biden’s communications director. Warren Bass left the Washington Post’s Outlook section to write speeches and advise Dr. Susan Rice at the United Nations. Daniel W. Reilly left Politico to become communications director for Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) Linda Douglass left the National Journal for the Obama campaign back in May and is expected to become assistant secretary for public affairs in the department of Health and Human Services.

On Monday, Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism published a report on “The New Washington Press Corps,” grim statistics confirming the high rate at which regional newspapers are shuttering their D.C. bureaus while niche and foreign outlets grow.

Of the journalists flocking to government jobs, Pew Project Director Tom Rosenstiel says: “There’s no mystery here, and I don’t think the key to this is ideological as much as economic. The newspaper industry, in Washington in particular, is suffering mightily.”




Rosenstiel noted that Shepard would have been out of a job by April, when Cox’s D.C. bureau will close after over three decades — and that Zuckman’s bureau has been downsized following consolidation among the Tribune Co.’s papers.

In the case of Frantz, who was laid off from Portfolio magazine in November, Rosenstiel said his Senate job isn’t much of a departure from the investigative reporting he’d done for decades — both require “a prosecutorial mindset.”

Both require money, too, and government may be better suited than media companies to provide it for now.

“I didn't leave journalism easily and I'll always think of myself as a reporter, with a notepad tucked in his back pocket and a lot of unanswered questions,” Frantz told Politico last month.

But even if Frantz views himself as a reporter, he’s no longer working for the Newhouse, Sulzberger or Chandler families. Instead, a Democratic politician signs the paychecks.

Frantz isn’t alone in downplaying the partisan aspect of his new job. Maybe it’s based on a lifetime of nonpartisan conditioning, but many of the reporters who’ve made the leap to government seem hesitant to admit that they’re no longer impartial observers.

“This is a Democratic administration; we’re obviously on that side of the aisle, but I don’t see this as a partisan job at all,” Carney told the Times a couple weeks back.

Carney told the Times that he had “an affinity” with Biden and Obama, but that it didn’t influence his coverage at the newsweekly. Time staffers have told Politico that they could never tell Carney’s politics during the 2008 race.

“I didn’t even know Jay was a Democrat,” Time’s Joe Klein said.

But does that mean Carney would have been just as eager to take a job as press secretary for Vice President Sarah Palin?

Currently traveling with Biden, Carney declined to be interviewed.

For Bozell, the ease of the transition is telling.

“If you are in journalism, and you can so easily fit in the world of politics, it tells you something,” Bozell said, “that you were not that detached from it when you were in journalism.”

Perhaps proving Bozell’s point, journalists say that there used to be more stigma attached when a reporter crossed over to cover someone he’s covered. Now, they say, it’s hard to consider a colleague a sell-out when the alternative to a government job could be the unemployment line.

Al Hunt, the executive Washington editor for Bloomberg News, said that making the switch used to be a “very weighty” decision — and that it’s not anymore.

“It’s a sad commentary on the state of the business,” Hunt said, adding that people have “got to put food on the table.”

He acknowledged that journalists weren’t exactly flocking to government work when George W. Bush took office in 2001, but he said that the industry factors were different then. No one was seriously predicting in February 2001 that large cities in the United States might be without daily newspapers by the time the year was out.

They’re making those kinds of predictions now. And Hunt says those economic fears — rather than an ideological bias — are driving the decisions journalists are making.

“If you can’t find a job in journalism and you live in Washington, the only option is a government job, and the government is dominated by Democrats,” he said. “That’s less ideological than it is situational.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/18971.html

A way to reward the "faithful" is also a way to "punish" the "heretics".....

Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Stephanopoulos Has Participated in Daily Strategy Sessions With Emanuel Throughout His Tenure at ABC

James Carville, Rahm Emanuel, Paul Begala and George Stephanopoulos have been holding daily phone conversations for nearly 17 years.

Stephanopoulos has held these calls throughout his tenure at ABC.

Emanuel and Begala are both top officials in the Obama Administration.

The Media Research Center is demanding that ABC address and resolve the clear violation of journalistic ethics by ABC’s Chief Washington Correspondent George Stephanopoulos. Charles Johnson reported on this from the Media Research Center: http://www.mrc.org/press/2009/press20090204.asp

Media Research Center (MRC) President L. Brent Bozell, III has written a letter to ABC News President David Westin calling on him to publicly address and resolve what appears to be a clear violation of journalistic ethics by ABC’s Chief Washington Correspondent George Stephanopoulos. Last week a Politico story broke the news that Stephanopoulos has participated in daily phone strategy sessions with now White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel throughout his tenure at ABC.

Mr. Bozell on Thursday issued a statement demanding an explanation, and calling for Stephanopoulos to recuse himself from reporting on an Obama Administration whose plans and messaging he spends every morning helping to craft. Stephanopoulos has remained silent.

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/20...ipated-in.html

Obama WH Secret Phone Conferences Bear Fruit With TV Media’s Limbaugh AttackBy Warner Todd Huston

Back on January 29, we discussed the daily strategy phone call engineered by Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel for friendly TV commentators and “reporters.” Politico reported that Emanuel has a daily phone conference call with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, and CNN’s James Carville and Paul Begala. With Rush Limbaugh’s raucous CPAC address, as he termed it his “first address to the nation,” we can see at least one example of what is likely an attack strategy resulting from the Emanuel phone session with a rush to bash Rush the day after the appearance.

As soon as the sun rose on the day after Limbaugh’s CPAC appearance, three of the four of the phone call participants attacked Limbaugh with the same talking points. It seems obvious that they coordinated their attack together in the Obama secret strategy session. It is amazing that a president’s staff can have such power over major media figures without a peep being heard from those that only months ago bashed former presidents over a perceived undue, even “dangerous,” control of the media.

The morning after Limbaugh’s CPAC speech, Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel appeared on CBS News’ Face the Nation and told Bob Schieffer that Limbaugh was the “voice of the Republican Party,” and that he “hasn’t stepped back from” the “hopes for failure” he expressed for Obama’s administration. http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/03...y4836756.shtml

James Carville, obeying his Obama marching orders, said pretty much the same thing in his CNN commentary headlined, “A history lesson for Rush Limbaugh,” where Carville began by saying that Rush is the “moral and intellectual leader and most influential person in the Republican Party.”

As for ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, he employed the same talking point about Rush’s hope that Obama’s socialist policies would not succeed — though it is sure that Stephy didn’t call Obama’s policies socialist. In an interview with Eric Cantor, Stephanopoulos said, “So the Rush Limbaugh approach of wanting the president to fail is not the Eric Cantor, House Republican approach?”

So, what we see here is the combined attack emanating out of the secret phone call strategy session pushing the themes that Rush is the “voice of the GOP” and that he wants Obama to be a failure — both talking points that are not exactly in context with the facts. The strategy at work is that these three Democrat activists pretending at members of the media have concocted with the White House through Emanuel an effort to tar all Republicans with the Rush brush.

These Obama strategists think that making Rush the “voice of the GOP” will drive away moderates and make the GOP seem to be leaning toward right-wing extremism. And, by adding Rush’s hope that Obama’s socialist policies fail, these strategists are attempting to claim that Republicans hate Obama merely because he is president (veiled racism) and not because the GOP is against these unAmerican polices Obama is pushing.

Once again, I have to ask, why are these secret phone call strategy sessions not a matter of public discussion? That the White House is orchestrating media messages with the supposedly independent press corps, is it nothing to raise an eyebrow about? Should we not see this as the sort of collusion between the press and the White House that leads to public information controlled by political spinmieisters in the belly of the White House instead of journalists interested in truth? Where are those that only until recently claimed to be interested in a free press dedicated to the real story? Why are they so suddenly quiet ?

Lastly I’d like to suggest something. These folks are all eager to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, of course. So, I am wondering if it would be “fair” that Rahm include a few conservatives in the secret phone sessions he has with his lap dog media pals? Let’s say along with Stephy, Carville and Begala, Rahm might include Rush and Sean Hannity?? Seems pretty fair to me, anyway!


http://www.stoptheaclu.com/archives/...mbaugh-attack/

White House unleashes on Internet critics
By Michelle Malkin • August 4, 2009 11:00 AM

The White House is using your tax dollars to go after the Drudge Report for linking to the Naked Emperor News video compilation of Obama and other Dems telegraphing how their “health care reforms” will lead to single payer.

Take a whiff of the White House bashing of Internet opponents: This is the smell of desperation.

Their lead attack dog? Former ABC News correspondent Linda Douglass. Douglass is identified as the communications director for the White House Office of Health Reform.

That’s the office of the interest-conflicted White House health czar, Nancy DeParle, whose industry ties have received little scrutiny as the administration convenes secret meetings with health care execs.

Distraction!

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/08/04...ernet-critics/

White House Using the Web against Drudge Report
Tue Aug 4, 9:29 am ET

WASHINGTON – The White House is turning to the Internet to hit back at a Web posting that claims to show President Barack Obama explaining how his health care reform plans eventually would eliminate private insurance.

The three-minute White House video features Linda Douglass, a former network television correspondent and now White House Office of Health Reform communications director, sitting in front of a computer screen showing the Drudge Report Web site. That site carries a series of video clips from another blogger who strings together selected Obama statements on health care to make it appear he wants to eliminate the private health insurance business.

In the video Douglas says the site is "taking sentences and phrases out of context, and they're cobbling them together to leave a very false impression."

On the Net: White House video: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Facts...ubborn-Things/

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090804/..._health_care_3


Health care czar’s office calls for Internet snitch brigade
By Michelle Malkin
August 4, 2009

Jeff Emanuel at RedState calls attention to the new push by the White House to summon Obama-bots to monitor blog postings and “casual conversations” of health care takeover opponents — and then report them to the White House.

As I noted earlier this morning, the White House pushback on the Internet is coming from the health care czar’s office.

Nancy DeParle makes $158,500 as health care czar. Her flack, Linda Douglass, is not listed in the White House employee salary chart.

What is the budget of the health care czar’s office, which was established by executive order in April? How much are they spending on the Internet snitch brigade initiative?

Tell your congressional reps home from recess: Show us the transparency.

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/08/04...nitch-brigade/

... Obama-bots to monitor blog postings and “casual conversations” of health care takeover opponents — and then report them to the White House.

If I were not already on their "Watch List" I guess I will be now...

I wonder if those who were concerned about Bush's wiretaps will be alarmed by THIS ?