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BOB SCHIEFFER, CBS NEWS: But he [Obama] still smokes? DAVID AXELROD: Yeah, but the President is doing a pretty good job on that [quitting].

David Axelrod, the White House's Senior Adviser, is ratcheting up the Democrats' attack on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, calling special interest spending "a threat to our democracy." Axelrod is accusing the Chamber of Commerce of collecting millions of dollars from secret donors - including some foreign sources - to influence the midterm elections in favor of the Republicans, and refusing to disclose their sources. "This issue of this special interest spending is very important," Axelrod said on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday. "It's never happened before that organizations are spending this kind of money. And the American people need...

Bob Woodward's searing critique of the Democrats' war strategy comes as key advisers are leaving and voters lose patience with Barack Obama's promise to deliver 'hope and change'. Alex Spillius reports on an increasingly isolated President. When Barack Obama took office 20 months ago – and what a long 20 months it seems – there was a lot of talk about the great "Team of Rivals" he was appointing around him. Parallels were drawn with the cabinet of substantial talents and big personalities assembled by Abraham Lincoln to rebuild the nation after the civil war. Now, in a new book,...

It smells like Tea Party victory. Ed Schultz has gotten a whiff, and he's panicking . . . On his MSNBC show this evening, sensing an impending Republican landslide inspired by the Tea Party tempest, Ed called for David Axelrod, Pres. Obama's chief political adviser, to be thrown overboard for being too "soft." Schultz suggested axing the Axe and replacing him with James Carville and Paul Begala. It was Joe Biden's attempt to rouse the base on Rachel Maddow's show last night that set Ed off . . . View video here.

Politics: The end of the Daley mayoral dynasty in Chicago may set the stage for a man who never wants to waste a good crisis to take the reins. Will the Windy City be socialism's next victim? Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's surprise announcement that he will not seek a seventh term in 2011 clears the way for White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to fulfill a personal ambition and at the same time escape the collapsing presidency of Barack Obama. The Daleys, Richard M. and Richard J., with brief interruptions from an occasional Harold Washington or Jane Byrne,...

Lyndon Johnson is famous for saying that if he had lost the favorable opinion of liberal former CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite that he had lost that of most of America. President Barack Obama may be at a similar juncture now. With his poll numbers continuing a downward trend in light of the Gulf oil leak, his unpopular health care bill, and deficit spending, liberal comedian Jon Stewart asked a question Monday that is now beginning to emerge even in the minds of stalwart Democrats: Is government capable of doing anything large and expansive ? As chronicled by Noel Sheppard...

It’s probably safe to say that South Carolina Senate Dem primary winner Alvin Greene will not be hearing from anonymous senior administration officials out to offer him a cushy job in exchange for him dropping out of the race. Instead, I imagine the White House (and many others) are hoping the press will do their dirty work and solve the strange mystery of how Greene — a totally unfunded, unknown — won the SC primary last week. When asked this morning on Meet the Press whether he thought Greene was a “legitimate candidate” David Axelrod did not pull many punches....

While President Obama assures Americans that his White House is the “people’s house,” he covertly gives political advisors taxpayer-funded personal drivers traditionally reserved for cabinet members and national security officials. Obama and Jarrett, who was his “Olympic Czar,” are so tight that he refers to her as a “sibling.” Before joining the administration Jarrett was involved in a series of real estate scandals, including several housing projects operated by convicted felon and Obama fundraiser/friend Antoin "Tony" Rezko. Besides getting a personal military driver to chauffer her around town and to and from work, Jarrett also gets Secret Service protection, which...

Reuters: President Barack Obama did not give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the cold shoulder when they met in the White House last week, David Axelrod said.

David Axelrod tells the Huffington Post that health-care reform passed because Republicans downgraded to DEFCON 2 after Scott Brown's surprise victory in the Massachusetts Senate race: "Some of the steam went out of the opposition after that," Axelrod said. "I think that people felt like they had made a statement. Perhaps they felt like they had killed health care reform... They thought the fight was over. And that [the president] couldn't now succeed. I do believe that. And it is almost as if they had made the statement that they thought they had stopped the thing. And so it created...

It says a lot when Vice President Joe Biden comes across as the Obama administration's most skilled statesman. Last week during a visit to Israel, Mr. Biden was caught off-guard by an announcement that work would progress on 1,600 apartment units in Jerusalem's Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, a Jewish enclave in the northern part of the city claimed by Palestinians. This faux pas could have ended civilly. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized for the bad timing of the announcement, and Mr. Biden reiterated the strength of the relationship between the two countries. Life should have gone on. Instead, Secretary of...

SNIP In a lengthy interview in his office on Wednesday, Mr. Axelrod was often defiant, saying he did not give a “flying” expletive “about what the peanut gallery thinks” and did not live for the approval “of the political community.” He denounced the “rampant lack of responsibility” of people in Washington who refuse to solve problems, and cited the difficulty of trying to communicate through what he calls “the dirty filter” of a city suffused with the “every day is Election Day sort of mentality.” SNIP Mr. Axelrod’s friends worry about the toll of his job — citing his diet...

More video evidence that the Democrats will try to ram through health care reform with a 51 vote simple majority, David Axelrod on CNN says the American people want this vote to be held...(Video)

Here is video of Obama Senior Adviser David Axelrod saying on Meet the Press today that he believes it was "totally appropriate" for President Obama to criticize the Supreme Court during his State of the Union Address, with them sitting right in front of them. Axelrod made the disingenuous argument that Obama made in his address that the recent Supreme Court ruling giving U.S. Corporations free speech rights would allow "foreign corporations" to influence U.S. elections. He said that even though the decision explicitly does not allow that to take place. . . . (VIDEO)

David Axelrod says the President will seek repeal of "don't ask, don't tell."

Obama senior aide David Axelrod once again blamed Bush for the current voter anger from the economic "disaster" apparently left behind by Bush. Let me repeat that again, and let's see if it sounds less asinine this time around. Obama senior aide David Axelrodonce again blamed Bush for the current vot...nope, I can't even complete repeating it, and it already sounds asinine as heck! Axelrod's—and, to be sure, many top Obama officials's—obsession with blaming Bush begs a few, choice questions. Is Axelrod on something? Is Axelrod delirious? Is Axelrod merely joking around? Or, as I think, is he really out...

Ever since the grass roots tea parties began, the progressives have tried to minimize them. They continue to call them, Tea Baggers, Nazis, Right Wing fringe, and of course Astroturf. The Astroturf charge is the most ironic as David Axelrod the President's Political adviser was once labeled by Business Week as The master of "Astroturfing", which is what PR industry insiders call the practice of "manufacturing grassroots support."According to Business Week, one of Axelrod's Astroturfing campaigns stealthily spent $15 million convincing Illinois taxpayers that their power would be shut off if they didn't approve an increase in their electric bills....

Richard Nixon had advertising executive H.R. Haldeman; Ronald Reagan had image master Mike Deaver; Barack Obama has public relations guru David Axelrod.All three men understood the power of visuals in communicating the strengths of the presidents they served on the campaign trail and in the office of the presidency. I don’t know where David Axelrod has been since President Obama began his ten-day Christmas vacation in Hawaii, but it is safe to say he is goofing off as much as his boss.(The Oval Office, December 29, 2009. Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)(AP Photo by Chris Carlson, December 31,...

Senior White House Adviser David Axelrod said today that supporters of health care reform are "right on the one-yard line" to push through passage of the legislation now that the Senate Democratic leadership says it has the 60 votes necessary to pass their version this week. Axelrod offered that optimistic prediction, when asked on CNN's State of the Union to describe progress with a football analogy, even though the Senate bill still would have to be reconciled with House legislation that has provisions that didn't pass muster in the upper chamber, and in the face of numerous public opinion polls...

Thuggery for me, not against me. Ed Schultz has joined Howard Dean and others who believe the Democrats should kill this health care bill unless it contains a "public option." He had a brief, relatively tepid exchange yesterday morning with David Axelrod on Morning Joe and decided he was being persecuted. Ed opened his show last night saying: The White House -- ooh, are they a little touchy as of late? Desperate to sell what they are calling health care reform -- I don't buy it. They are trying to vilify now anyone who opposes it. That's what's happening...