A newly released book by Richard Wolffe, the vice president and executive editor of MSNBC.com, details some of dealings President Barack Obama had with left-leaning media outlets during the last election.
Wolffe’s book, “The Message: The Reselling of President Obama,” recaps what Obama’s re-election team had to do to overcome the obstacles it faced in the 2012 presidential election cycle — a bad economy, the fading of his “hope and change” message and the need to fundraise to compete against the Republican nominee.
Along the way, Obama had some run-ins with members of the media, including MSNBC firebrand Ed Schultz, host of “The ED Show.” Wolffe described the episode in his book:
Ed Schultz sat listening to others opine before ripping into an impassioned plea for the president to stand up and fight. The forty-fourth president of the United States listened calmly and nodded his head, surprising his aides with a meek appearance that successfully masked how little patience he had for such criticism.
Newsbusters’ Tim Graham reports Schultz reacted to that part of Wolffe’s book on his Monday radio show. Schultz claimed he did not recall the “tirade,” but Schultz comment on Obama’s irritations with The New York Times editorial page and his desire to let Times editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal know about those irritations, which are also in Wolffe’s book.
“You mean, the president was paying attention to my commentary and it was something during the campaign that he didn’t like so he picked up the phone and called the New York Times and tried to get after it, get after it with Andrew Rosenthal, so, I don’t know anything about this,” Schultz said. “I don’t know, maybe they had thin skins over there at the White House.”
(h/t Huffington Post)