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In a stunning reversal of fortune for President Barack Obama, top progressives are attacking the health-reform plan moving through the Senate as “hollow,” “unsupportable” and a sellout to corporate interests. Republicans, after plotting for months to sink the signature legislation of Obama’s first year, suddenly think that Democrats might wind up doing it for them. Most dangerously for White House chances of assembling 60 Senate votes, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean launched a third day of attacks on the emerging bill, arguing in a Washington Post op-ed that it meets none of his benchmarks for “real reform.” “[A]s it stands,...

Axelrod: Left 'insane' to sink bill By: Mike Allen December 17, 2009 09:18 AM EST Trying to stave off a sudden fusillade from the left, White House senior adviser David Axelrod said Thursday that Howard Dean's criticisms of health-care reform are "predicated on a bunch of erroneous conclusions" and that for progressives to torpedo the legislation "would be a tragic, tragic outcome." “To defeat a bill that will bend the curve on this inexorable rise in health-care costs is insane,” Axelrod said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” "I don’t think that you want this moment to pass. It will not come...

Seventy-one percent (71%) of voters nationwide say they’re at least somewhat angry about the current policies of the federal government. That figure includes 46% who are Very Angry. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 27% are not angry about the government's policies, including 10% who are Not at All Angry........ The data suggests that the level of anger is growing. The 71% who are angry at federal government policies today is up five percentage points since September. Even more stunning, the 46% who are Very Angry is up 10 percentage points from September.

Trying to counter perceptions that the trip failed to bring about solid results, advisor David Axelrod says, 'Things don't change overnight.' Reporting from Seoul - Even before President Obama boarded his home-bound flight for Washington, capping a grueling weeklong Asian tour, the White House was scrambling to combat perceptions that the trip failed to produce concrete results. Compared to Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, the U.S. is putting its alliances "on a firmer footing" and has "reasserted our leadership in the region," the White House said in a statement released to reporters hours before the president's flight home.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats and Republicans in Congress are working together to craft an immigration reform bill that could become law as early as next year, a senior White House adviser said on Sunday. That legislation could create a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in the United States, David Axelrod, senior advisory to President Barak Obama, told CNN's State of the Union with John King. "I think some good work is being done on both sides of the aisle to achieve that," Axelrod said, referring to the partisan divide on Capitol Hill.

Here is video of CNN's Wolf Blitzer interviewing Robert Gibbs, David Axelrod, and Anita Dunn. Blitzer asked if there was anything they wish they had done "a little different." Axelrod answered "by in large things have gone as we intended." Axelrod said that Obama "does about two hours of homework every night and then he reads books and magazines after he's done with that." (Video)

Obama fans are in a tight spot. As the White House turns ever harsher and more divisive, supporters are scrambling to explain why President Obama sounds so very different from Campaigner Obama. There are two possible explanations, neither of which is flattering. The first is that Obama was insincere on the campaign trail. The second is that his advisors – David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel -- are in control. The latter view is bound to take hold and it will not boost the president’s flagging popularity ratings. Many who voted for President Obama feel deceived. When he said in Florida...

When Van Jones resigned his White House job, under fire for his pro-communist views, White House adviser David Axelrod said that Jones had himself made the decision to leave the administration. But new documents indicate that Jones didn't even write his own resignation letter. It is now abundantly clear that he was pushed out because the scandal threatened to implicate Obama friend and White House adviser Valerie Jarrett in the scandal that gave him a critical White House position without proper vetting. Jones, a self-identified communist, was an anti-police activist in Oakland, California, before an extreme makeover landed him at...

Fox News is "operating basically as talk radio," President Obama suggested in an interview airing today. After weeks of public feuding between the cable news channel and the president's top aides, Obama seemed to agree with statements by his advisers that Fox is not a real "news station." "I think what our advisers have simply said is that we are going to take media as it comes," Obama told NBC's Savannah Guthrie. "And if media is operating basically as a talk radio format then that's one thing, and if it's operating as a news outlet that's another but it's not...

The Obama team isn’t at war with Fox because it’s conservative. They’re angry because Fox has embarrassed them. Tucker Carlson on the press corps’ shameful silence: It’s not surprising that the White House doesn’t like Fox. Most politicians hate the press, and few hide it well. What’s new and remarkable about the Obama administration’s approach is the demand that everyone else hate Fox, too. “They’re not really a news station,” David Axelrod explained to George Stephanopoulos last Sunday. “It’s not just their commentators, but a lot of their news programming if you watch, it’s really not news… The bigger thing...

Sending Anita Dunn—who is probably not enjoying her proverbial 15 minutes of fame—out onto the north lawn of the White House to attack Fox News is serving its purpose. The responsibility for determining which of the national news networks are legitimate and which ones are not is something the founders did not include in the executive powers section of the Constitution. One might even argue that the inclusion of the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights is a pretty clear sign they thought that giving any part of the federal government the power to do so would not, to...

Buried in the administration's multiple inflammatory statements on Fox News may be their strategy in all of this. In fact, Anita Dunn, David Axelrod, and Rahm Emanuel made hints at it in their statements. Here's the pertinent portion from Axelrod. The bigger thing is that other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way, and we’re not going to treat them that way. We’re going to appear on their shows. We’re going to participate, but understanding that they represent a point of view.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs singled out specific shows on the Fox News network for criticism ... ... Tuesday morning, continuing a public feud between the White House and the cable network that gained new momentum over the weekend. Meeting with reporters in his office for an off-camera question-and-answer session, Gibbs parried questions about the White House's harsh criticism of the cable news network, leveled on several Sunday shows by officials including White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and senior adviser David Axelrod. Asked if it was fair for the White House to label Fox an illegitimate news...

If it's Sunday, it's beat up on Fox News. Earlier today, my NewsBusters colleague Noel Sheppard posted the disparaging words White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had for the Fox News Channel. That was a sentiment that Obama Senior Advisor David Axelrod echoed on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." Stephanopoulos pointed out comments from Mao Tse Tung admirer White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, which she criticized Fox News. ...more (w/video)...

Mafioso, Goon Squad, Communist, Nazi, Jihadi, Democrat politics as usual--whatever you want to call the thuggish tactics of the Obama administration, the very public threats they are making to the news media to not follow the lead of Fox News in questioning Obama's policies and personnel is a direct threat to the freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment.This morning on the Sunday talk shows, speaking on behalf of President Barack Obama, senior Obama advisers David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel carried on the war initiated by White House communictions director Anita Dunn last week on CNN.Axelrod appeared on ABC News' This...

At a time of tension between their organizations, White House senior adviser David Axelrod met with Fox News chairman and chief executive officer Roger Ailes two weeks ago, sources tell POLITICO. The two met privately in Manhattan during the president’s visit to the United Nations. The two discussed news coverage and the relationship between the organizations. Ailes is the founder of Fox News. A key part of Axelrod’s portfolio is the president’s image and broad message. POLITICO has asked Fox for comment, and will update with reaction. White House officials have expressed pique with what they consider heavy coverage of...

George Soros is one of the big sugar daddies of the Democratic Party. He also is the ruler of an archipelago of so-called 527 groups that pose as non-partisan activists groups, but in fact are often hyper-partisan (such as MoveOn.Org), and are often employed by Democrats to influence elections. Soros, for years, has been the top funder of such groups. His influence among Democrats is widespread and enduring (and was well-documented by David Horowitz and Richard Poe in their book, The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party). His pet think-tank,...

Here is video of Dick Morris on with Sean Hannity last night where he slapped down Obama Chief adviser David Axelrod. Morris said over the weekend, Axelrod was asked about Dick Morris's contention that if you add 47 million people (or 30 million or whatever the White House number is today) to the Health Care system all at once, you will have a shortage of doctors. Axelrod responded, "What Medical School did Morris go to?" Dick Morris said he wanted to respond to his "former employee" David Axelrod. He said: "David, it's not a matter of Med School - it's...

A top White House aide said Sunday that the thousands of conservative "tea party" demonstrators who marched in Washington on Saturday were "wrong" because they represent only a fringe section of society. "I don't think it's indicative of the nation's mood," David Axelrod, the president's top adviser, said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "My message to them is, they're wrong." ((snip)) Mr. Axelrod vowed that the administration would not be "distracted" by those railing against its health care reform proposal.

White House senior adviser David Axelrod says that the demonstrations in Washington, D.C., Saturday do not represent the views of the broader public when it comes to health care reform.