Nation Topics - Richard Wolffe | The Nation

The talking heads of cable news are leading double lives as paid lobbyists for corporations.

Since my poker buddy John Heilemann was good enough to drop off a copy of his embargoed book,

White House Communications Director Anita Dunn made headlines last week for calling out Fox News, now she's drawing attention for comments she made about how the Obama campaign managed to control and route around the traditional press. You can bet this video is going viral. (Embedded below).

In footage from a January conference, Dunn candidly explains the campaign's disciplined emphasis on disintermediation:

The reality is that whether it was a David Plouffe video or an Obama speech ... a huge part of our press strategy was focused on making the media cover what Obama was actually saying -- as opposed to why the campaign was saying it, what the tactic was.... One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters. We just put that out there and make them write what Plouffe had said -- as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it, as opposed to the press controlled it. And it did not always make us popular with the press... increasingly by the General Election, very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control.

Maybe we need sportscasters to ask informed, incisive questions of our pundits and politicians? It certainly was refreshing to watch Bob Costas sub for Larry King the night of Bush's Iraq speech. I happened to flick on CNN's premier talk show, expecting the usual vapid questions and platitudinous replies, and found the veteran sportscaster asking some smart and (relatively) tough questions. (Click here to read the transcript.)

Costas: ...There were no weapons of mass destruction. There has been no contact or connection between Iraq and al Qaeda or 9/11 established. Vice President Cheney says the insurgency is in its final throes. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld says the insurgency could last a decade or more. Does the the Bush Administration now face a credibility gap?" (Both Time's Jay Carney and Newsweek's Richard Wolffe said yes.)

I sat up and started listening.

CNN LARRY KING LIVE

Reactions to President Bush's SpeechAired June 28, 2005 - 21:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITSFINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.