Posts Tagged ‘ObamaCare’

Linda Douglass, the former ABC News and CBS News Washington correspondent who signed aboard the Obama campaign in May of 2008, is resigning next week from her post as Communications Director for the White House’s Health Reform Office, the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reported Thursday afternoon on the paper's “44” blog (which I saw plugged on DCRTV.com). Kurtz described her as “a top pitchwoman for President Obama's health care plan.”

Is another media gig in the offing? No word yet. Kurtz quoted her statement, which only said she wants “to step off the treadmill for awhile and rediscover the experience of dining with my husband on a regular basis.”

Douglass, who appeared frequently on MSNBC's The Ed Show to disparage conservative criticism and champion ObamaCare, “said she will be 'cheering with pride from the sidelines as this historic law takes effect,'” Kurtz relayed. And maybe not really making a full break: “Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer says Douglass 'will continue to be a valued adviser to this President and this White House.'”

Douglass left ABC News in 2006, after spending much of the 1990s with CBS, and in 2008 became senior strategist and senior campaign spokesperson on the road for the Obama campaign. Her first stint in the new administration was as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Complete Obama-Media Revolving Door list.

May of 2008: “ABC and CBS Veteran Linda Douglass Joins Obama's Campaign

Commenting on the new health care law, on Wednesday’s Late Show with David Letterman, comedian/actor Chris Rock cracked: “I feel sorry for the people that were against it” since “that's going to be a tough one to explain to your grand kids.”

Rock, on to promote his new movie, Death at a Funeral, barbed that ObamaCare opponents remind him of those against civil rights in the 1960s who years later had to answer, “grand daddy, is this your ‘I Hate Martin Luther King’ hat?”

A couple of the lines from Rock on the April 7 show, delivered as jokes but clearly conveying his true feelings:

> You know, I feel sorry for the people that were against it. That's going to be a tough one to explain to your grand kids. “I just didn't think everyone should be healthy. I was just against it. You didn't know these people. They were sicker than you thought.”

> I'm sure it was the same thing with, like, civil rights, you know. People are against it now, they gotta explain this to their grand kids. It’s like, “grand daddy, is this your ‘I Hate Martin Luther King’ hat?”

BTW, Rock is one of four people interviewed by Bill Maher for a pre-recorded Real Time to run Friday night on HBO.