CRONY WATCH: ANITA DUNN

October 16th, 2009 |

Both wings of the blogosphere have been all a-twitter over the assault tactics the Obama Administration is using against Fox News. Carrying the Obama standard at the vanguard is one Anita Dunn, interim Communications Director for the White House. Anita is one-half of a Newsweek 2008 “Power Couple.” Her spouse, Robert Bauer, was general counsel to the Obama campaign and now is general counsel to the Democratic National Committee. Trying to suppress free speech that opposes Obama policy is a family thing with Bob and Anita. Conveniently, Anita is on temporary leave from her partnership at Squier Knapp Dunn, a communications consulting firm. We show her here with another Obama crybaby crony, David Axelrod, who continues to receive financial rewards from Obama-related consulting gigs. Clearly they didn’t get Barry’s memo about such things.

What assault tactics? Fox News has a summary here. Suffice to say in a shoot-out between the White House and the First Amendment, we know where we’d put our money.

Who and what is under the rock from which Anita Dunn crawls? There’s the interesting part. But before we get to that, let’s talk ideology. In her own words. Roll the tape:

Hugh Hewitt assesses: “She was not joking. She was painfully earnest and apparently utterly clueless about the legacy of the mass-murdering fanatic Mao. Imagine saying that you took inspiration from the writings of Pol Pot, and failing to mention the slaughter of 2 million Cambodians under his rule.” Imagine, indeed. This ain’t your garden variety Che Guevara fashion statement-making liberal here, folks. This is a special kind of deliberative cluelessness.

It appears that Anita’s chosen challenging path, her personal Calcutta, is trailblazing the fight against a particularly arduous foe, as her two mentors would have approved. On she forges, spearheading the Obama Administration’s goal of suppressing the bedrock of free speech in this country, despite the admonitions of some of her professional counterparts that this path is, to put it mildly, ill-advised. We’re going to treat [the FOX News] the way we would treat an opponent. As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave. -The New York Times interview, October 11, 2009

There’s a long history of dragon-slaying emanating from the halls of Squier Knapp Dunn. A quick perusal of their website reveals who dwells in their rock garden. The company’s clients have included Senators Mary Landrieu (roped into line during the Hurricane Katrina debacle), and Jay Rockefeller, who thinks the internet is dangerous for our country. Chuck Schumer thinks they’re swell.

SKD boasts battle-tested campaign strategists among its principals who are capable of “turning red seats blue,” having acted as counsel and developer for Tom Daschle, Bill Bradley, Evan Byah, Andrew Cuomo, and Michael Bloomberg. The company roster includes Barbara Boxer’s former Chief of Staff, Karen Olick, who founded Americans United for Change to deflect George W. Bush’s Social Security plan, and worked for the Harkin, Biden and Mondale Presidential campaigns.

SKD prides itself in providing superior “message development, free press strategy (!), crisis communications,” as well as “grass roots advocacy and organizing.” Hmmm. It can’t be coincidental that having worked with NARAL, Al Sharpton, SEIU locals, SEIU New Jersey, SEIU National, and initiatives such as SEIU Take Back America, that SKD would persuade a former SEIU Executive Director, Jennifer Cunningham, to jump into bed.

With all that, it isn’t preposterous to claim, “The people at Squier Knapp Dunn know how to help you achieve your goals. We know how Washington works, and can make the system work for you. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll figure out how to go around the system – or even create a new one – to help you succeed. We stand ready to help with your next project.”

Yep, even if that project is to water down or eliminate altogether the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.