The mao-maoing of Anita Dunn

Accusations that White House communications director Anita Dunn is a left-wing ideologue have no credibility. But that doesn't mean they haven't been successful.  

I’ve been waiting -- in vain -- for another shoe to drop in the White House’s "war" with Fox News. We’ve seen Jake Tapper of ABC News defend "one of our sister organizations" from White House attack. We’ve seen other journalists calling out the White House for Nixonian tendencies. But as far as I can tell, no Washington journalist has defended Anita Dunn.

Dunn is the White House communications director who announced her resignation yesterday. She had initiated the effort to delegitimize Fox News and was subsequently accused of being a "Maoist" burrowed in the executive branch. The allegation was hatched at Fox, from which it migrated to other right-wing news sources and from there traveled into the mainstream ­-- surfacing at the end of October in one of Washington's most respected publications.

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Francis Wilkinson is executive editor of The Week.