So far, it appears that ABC News is the only network to cover a controversial new book shedding a harsh light on the goings-on within Obama’s White House. On Monday, Good Morning America‘s George Stephanopoulos intoduced a segment on the book by calling Ron Suskind‘s Confidence Men nothing short of a “bombshell.” Jake Tapper then outlined the allegations contained therein, including charges of sexism, in-fighting among aides and general incompetence within the administration.

New light is being shed on an old but hardly forgotten “war” between the White House and Fox News Channel. Judicial Watch, which oddly describes itself as a “conservative non-partisan” educational foundation, filed a Freedom of Information Act request and has now obtained e-mails from the White House that Judicial Watch says reveal that staffers specifically sought to exclude Fox News from interviewing an administration official, despite public statements from the White House at the time that such an action was merely “a mistake.”

With the momentous news that Osama bin Laden has been killed, Saturday’s White House Correspondents Dinner feels almost like an event from a bygone era. Still, for those of you who still remember the dinner, but have already seen President Obama‘s blistering Donald Trump routine, or Seth Meyers‘ dry-roasting of the media like so many [...]

Other than Juan Williams the storyline making the most headlines this week is the enormous sums of anonymous money being funneled into this year’s midterm campaigns. As former RNC head Ed Gillespie reminded everyone on This Week this morning, this is now “the law of the land.” However is it damaging our electoral process? Nope! Says George Will.

A short, interesting exchange on Meet the Press today that I think goes a long way in explaining how the administration found itself playing a starring role in the Shirley Sherrod fiasco this week. Listen to how former White House communications director Anita Dunn, former White House communications director explain how the administration got into this mess.

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan would probably prefer that her sexual orientation not be the subject of a heated national debate, but since CBS News flung that door open, the genie just won’t go back into the bottle. In fact, the Wall Street Journal’s use of a softball-themed dog whistle seems to have set the genie on fire in a fireworks factory, and an overly-cautious White House is drawing attention to it like a blaring red fire engine. Kagan’s silent defiance is understandable, but she’s now in a position to do a lot of good.

Glenn Beck received a very special present this St. Patrick’s Day from one of his major chalkboard villains, SEIU president Andy Stern: an SEIU smock and a letter written in “little girl’s writing.” Beck responded in kind, making his own custom t-shirt designs to match each recipient’s personality. The answer to your question is no, Che Guevara does not appear, but Chairman Mao does!

The New York Times conducted a video interview with new White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, and he didn’t waste time in reigniting the White House vs. Fox News storyline that seemed to die down at the end of last year.

Now Fox News, and Greta Van Susteren specifically, are responding. Update: So is Glenn Beck.

President Obama and the media is getting the New Yorker treatment this week. Obama is about to celebrate his first year as President. And boy has it been a year. That intensity that has surrounded his first year, while partly the result of events that followed Obama to the Oval Office, is also the result of media coverage under “pressure to entertain or perish.” Sometimes things get missed.

Outgoing White House Communications Director Anita Dunn made a parting strafing run at Fox News on Friday, calling the network out for airing misleading crowd footage, jumping the gun on an announcement of a Presidential interview and letting its opinion tail wag the news dog. In doing so, she heavily name-checked her should-be successor, The Daily Show‘s Jon Stewart. Fox News’ spokespeople responded swiftly, passively and aggressively.

Glenn Beck will be losing a sparring partner soon, as Anita Dunn will be stepping down as Communications Director at the end of the month.

Dunn was one of the first Obama administration officials to attack Fox News in the ongoing beef between the two sides.

While the salvos between FNC and the White House have recently abated, we are now left to wonder: what the hell happened? It’s clear why FNC loved the controversy — it helped their ratings and allowed them to cover one of their favorite topics: Fox News!

But the unanswered question thus far is this: what exactly did the White House get out of it? Three words: Health care reform.

For the last three weeks or so pretty much the only topic of conversation in media circles has been the White House’s ‘war’ on Fox News. But also enter a much larger problem. From the beginning, the ultimate danger of allowing the White House to take on a news organization the way it has with Fox, is that it has now set a precedent. One that they apparently have no qualms about extending.

Sarah Palin’s public will have to wait few weeks to discover what the former Governor of Alaska has to say about all things Palin, but in the meantime perhaps they can feast upon a few interesting details from David Plouffe’s new book The Audacity to Win about the 2008 campaign. What did Obama really think about McCain’s choice for V.P.?

NPR is currently conducting an online survey to see whether its listeners/readers agree or disagree with the White House’s ‘war’ on Fox News. So far close to 200,000 people have participated, which is perhaps not surprising considering the listener numbers that NPR enjoys nationwide. What is surprising however is the results.

Perhaps Anita Dunn should consider taking some of the smart advice Glenn Beck offered up during his show last night: Don’t pick a fight with the news business. Between the magic coin tricks and the carrier pigeon impressions Beck produced some sharp little nuggets of wisdom.

Jake Tapper took a lot of heat from the left yesterday for daring to ask whether the White House has the right to adjudicate the legitimacy of a news organization. The exchange was the latest in a growing feud between the White House and Fox News Channel. The White House has also begun to take flak over this, and not just from the right. I think both sides need to simmer down, now, and take a look at the whole picture.

This is probably not the result that White House officials had in mind when they came up with the strategy of marginalizing Fox News. Last night Anderson Cooper had on guests James Carville (Democrat) and Kevin Madden (Republican) to debate a growing meme that should concern the Obama administration: do they have a “Nixon-type enemies list”?

President Obama was asked if it is appropriate to be “working the umps” in regards to White House officials repeatedly calling Fox News “not a news organization.” The President appeared neither aggrieved nor apologetic in accessing the contentious relationship between Fox News and his administration, though he did claim that it was “not something that I’m losing a lot of sleep over.”

Last week we suggested that Glenn Beck would make a great host for Saturday Night Live. Latest evidence: Earlier this week Glenn Beck renamed the red phone he has installed on set so that the White House can call him directly the ‘Mao Hotline’. Alas, no one at the White House has been dialing his digits, so today introduced a new line of communication: carrier pigeons.

Whether the White House will be successful in their quest to delegitimize Fox News remains unclear. One already gets the sense that there is a backlash in the works about the administration’s blanket dismissal of Fox as a news organization — shows at 5 and 9pm do not an entire network make. However, perhaps Obama is just taking advantage of where the wind is blowing.

White House senior adviser David Axelrod joined George Stephanopoulos to follow-up on remarks that Fox News isn’t really a news station. After a clip Rupert Murdoch about how the White House is actually helping Fox News’s ratings, Stephanopoulos really cut to the bone, asking Axelrod “Are You Worried That Your Strategy is Fortifying Your Enemy?” The enemy, of course, is Fox News.

Glenn Beck appears to have caught the book club fever. On today’s rather scattered show — one which veered from Che Guevara t-shirts, to Mao loving Obama officials, to vintage Kodak commercials, to tears — Beck took a moment to introduce his viewers to both his personal library, as well as the books he suspects the White House is guilty of reading. His selection, after the jump.

At today’s White House press briefing, I wanted to give Press Secretary Robert Gibbs a chance to respond to criticism that the administration is attacking Fox News with plastic army men. Or something.

Gibbs resisted the bait at first, instead opting to rehearse his next career day lecture, but zeroed in a little on followup: