8 seconds ago 2009-12-10T12:45:06-08:00
Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Dan Pfeiffer, a longtime aide to President Barack Obama, will be the new White House communications director, replacing Anita Dunn, who temporarily filled the position, two White House officials said.
Dunn, who was named in April as interim communications director, worked for Obama’s presidential campaign and served as an outside adviser to the president before joining the White House staff. She will remain involved as a consultant, one of the officials said.
Dunn attacked Fox News last month, saying in an interview with cable rival CNN that the network “often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.”
“What is fair to say about Fox, and certainly the way we view it, is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party,” Dunn said Oct. 11 on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.” She went on to say that Fox “really is not a news network at this point.” She also vowed to challenge reporters who “mischaracterize” and use “opposition research that’s inaccurate.”
Pfeiffer, 33, has been serving as deputy communications director. He is a veteran of Democratic campaigns including former Vice President Al Gore’s 2000 presidential contest and the Senate races of Tom Daschle and Tim Johnson, both of South Dakota. He also worked for Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana.
Pfeiffer will be the third official, and first male, to hold the post for Obama; the president’s first communications director, Ellen Moran, left in April to serve as chief of staff to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.
Dunn had dismissed criticism that Obama’s inner circle was too dominated by men, telling the New York Times that she didn’t mind not participating in Obama’s men-only basketball games.
“That is just part of the culture here that I am excluded from,” she said. “And I don’t care.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Julianna Goldman in Washington at jgoldman6@bloomberg.net ; Hans Nichols in Washington at hnichols2@bloomberg.net .
