From WGN:

David Axelrod, a top advisor to President Obama and the main architect of his election victory in 2008, will be leaving the White House next year and returning to Chicago to work on the president’s re-election campaign, a White House aide said Thursday.

Axelrod has not specified a departure date, but he plans to remain in his current position “well into 2011,” the aide said.

Axelrod, who calls himself a “Chicagoan on assignment,” has long made clear he missed his hometown and would return before the end of the four-year term. His wife still lives in the city.

One of Obama’s most trusted aides, Axelrod occupies a small office just steps from the Oval Office. On a wall in Axelrod’s office hangs a picture of the White House drawn by his daughter. The Chicago skyline is shown in the reflecting pool.

Axelrod, a former Chicago Tribune reporter and City Hall bureau chief-turned-campaign consultant, is the latest of the Obama crew to voluntarily dive overboard, joining Peter Orszag, Christina Romer, Larry Summers and, soon enough, fellow Chicagoan Rahm Emanuel. (more…)

USA Today reports that private pay has shrunk to historically low levels, which should send chills down Americans’ spines.  After 17 months, we are finally seeing the anticipated results of Obama’s well-designed policies.  And there are those who still think Obama isn’t intentionally trying to bankrupt the United States through the implementation of government programs, nationalizing of industries, bogus “reforms”–all under the guise of good will and fixing a “broken” system.

The excuse of “Bush created the problems, so we had to spend all this money and implement these reforms” is wearing thin.  And, frankly, if that is true, then why the result of historically low private sector pay and record numbers of people dependent on the government?   Shouldn’t the opposite have happened?  Isn’t that what a stimulus is?  Or, were those supposed stimulus and jobs bills vehicles to facilitate this exact result reported by USA Today?

From the USA Today article:

Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year, a USA TODAY analysis of government data finds.

At the same time, government-provided benefits — from Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs — rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010.

(more…)

Really, can it get any worse? Can once-proud media organizations sully themselves any more? Andrea “NBC News, Washington” Mitchell married to Alan Greenspan. Christiane Amanpour married to former Clinton Administration mouthpiece Jamie Rubin.  Speaking of Clinton hacks, James Carville and Paul Begala, shacking up together at CNN. And now this. From Newsbusters:

To highlight the announcement that Bianna Golodryga had been named co-anchor of the weekend Good Morning America, ABC blurred the lines of journalism on Sunday and brought on the host’s fiancee, Barack Obama’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag.

In a fawning piece on Golodryga’s life story, an onscreen graphic identified Orszag only as the journalist’s fiancee. At the end of the segment, the Democratic official strode onto the set, surprising the host. Only then, almost as an aside, did co-anchor Bill Weir explain, “…For those who may not know, Bianna’s fiance is in President Obama’s cabinet.”

What a surprise! A news anchor engaged to an Obama Administration official.  And one with, shall we say, a Lothario-like past. Pillow talk — what pillow talk? We’re all professionals here!

In the old days, such relationships were grounds for firing, not a promotion. But the demoralized ABC News obviously no longer cares about propriety, integrity or anything else. Today, sleeping with a source is simply good “journalism.” Not to mention, “access.” (more…)

The MSM is usually quick to tut-tut about the sexual peccadilloes of public figures, especially if they’re conservatives or Republicans — Mark Foley, whoever you are or were, come on down!  But when the frisky Lothario turns out to be a Democrat, they’ll either defend him to til the last dog dies (Bill Clinton, take a bow!) or just ignore the story altogether (smile for the cameras, John Edwards).

Occasionally they get into a little hot water in the love department themselves.  Never mind for a moment the vast interlocking network of media biggies sleeping with their sources — say hello, Bianna Golodryga, currently the fiancee of Obama Administration budget director Peter Orszag, who’s just been tapped to co-host the weekend edition of ABC’s Good Morning America — we’ll get to them another time.  But it does seem that the late Abe Rosenthal’s “elephants” rule has long since passed into history, along with Abe himself.

Now comes CNN legal analyst and New Yorker writer Jeffrey Toobin, who years ago wrote a notable book on the O.J. Simpson case and hasn’t done much of anything since, except, well,  this.  From the New York Daily News:

Baby drama! CNN star Jeffrey Toobin offered Casey Greenfield money for abortion: sources

(more…)

In the past, I have claimed that the mainstream media is in bed with the Obama Administration.  This time, I mean it literally.

According to the New York Post, Obama budget boss Peter Orszag is engaged to ABC correspondent Bianna Golodryga.  Meanwhile, his ex-girlfriend Claire Milonas, gave birth to his illegitimate child on November 17.  Orszag is already a two-time father by his first wife (they are divorced, naturally).

Bianna Golodryga and Peter Orszag

The media is treating this whole story as a seedy morality play starring an incredibly nerdy Director of OMB.  But even though it now appears that Orszag was spreading his seed just as profligately as taxpayer money, that isn’t the real story.

The real story here is actually Bianna Golodryga and the extremely cozy relationship that sometimes develops between reporters and their sources.

Golodryga, according to her profile at ABCNews.com, covers “the economy and business beat for all of the network’s programs, including World News Tonight, Good Morning America Weekend, and Nightline… Golodryga reported extensively on the housing and credit crisis as well as the collapse of Bear Stearns.” (more…)