David Axelrod is jumping ship to CNN. After serving as a senior political analyst for MSNBC and NBC since 2013, Axelrod will make the move to CNN as a senior political commentator.
Prior to his work at the Lean Forward network, Axelrod was best known for his role as a senior advisor to Obama during the president’s first term, and playing an important role in getting Obama elected twice.
CNN Washington Bureau Chief Sam Feist released a statement earlier today praising Axelrod as:
An all-around respected, well-connected commentator on the American political scene, we are delighted to have David join us and look forward to him sharing his political analysis with our global audience…
This is nothing new – Obama staffers leaving their jobs and going into the arms of the liberal media that awaits them. Tom LoBianco, a writer for CNN, wrote:
Axelrod, who was previously a political analyst for MSNBC, joins the growing ranks of former Obama administration officials who have decamped for news outlets. Jay Carney, a former Time reporter-turned White House Press Secretary, became a commentator for CNN shortly after leaving Pennsylvania Avenue last year.
Then there was Johanna Maska, who left the administration to become vice president of marketing and communications for the Los Angeles Times, and as the Washington Post reported two years ago:
The list of prominent news people with close White House relations includes ABC News President Ben Sherwood, who is the brother of Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, a top national-security adviser to President Obama. His counterpart at CBS, news division president David Rhodes, is the brother of Benjamin Rhodes, a key foreign-policy specialist. CNN’s deputy Washington bureau chief, Virginia Moseley, is married to Tom Nides, who until earlier this year was deputy secretary of state under Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Further, White House press secretary Jay Carney’s wife is Claire Shipman, a veteran reporter for ABC. And NPR’s White House correspondent, Ari Shapiro, is married to a lawyer, Michael Gottlieb, who joined the White House counsel’s office in April.
Those Obama administration staffers and the news media are an incestuous bunch.
