White House aide Anita Dunn moving on

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Anita Dunn is stepping out at the White House.

And Dan Pfeiffer is stepping up.

Dunn, the White House communications director who created something of a stir when she asserted on CNN recently that FOX News is an ‘arm’’ of the Republican Party and not really a news network in the traditional sense, also got political foes at Fox going when they revealed that she had once referred to Mao Tse-tung as one of her favorite political philosophers.

But the communications director’s stint was meant to be ‘interim’’ from the start.

‘My title was ‘interim,’’’ Dunn noted in an e-mail to the Swamp today.

Pfeiffer, her assistant, will take over the communications director’s office on Dec. 1, and Dunn will continue to serve as a consultant.

Pfeiffer started working for Barack Obama in 2007 after Sen. Evan Bayh’s decision not to pursue the presidency. He served a stint as the traveling press secretary for Obama’s presidential campaign but eventually oversaw its communications operations.

-- Mark Silva