Revolving Door--The Sequel

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

David Axelrod, senior advisor and senior strategist during President Barack Obama's 2008 and 2012 campaigns, has signed on as a contributor to NBC News and theMSNBC cable network, just a week after  former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs did the same.

Axelrod, who turns 58 this week, recently was named director of the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago, his alma mater, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Harris School of Public Policy. The Chicago-homesick "TUOL" staff remembers way back when Axelrod toiled as a political writer for The Chicago Tribune.

If Fox News has served as a haven--or witness protection program, depending on one's political viewpoint--for former GOP presidential aspirants, ranging from Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum to recently hired Herman Cain, then NBC News and MSNBC is fast becoming the retirement community for Obama Administration refugees. Meanwhile, broadcast and print journalists by the bushel-full ponder voluntary buyout offers.

Oiling the Revolving Door

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Robert Gibbs, senior advisor to President Barack Obama's 2012 campaign, has been hired as a contributor to MSNBC and NBC News, Politico reported.

The 41-year-old Auburn, Alabama, native was the 28th White House press secretary, serving in that role for President Obama from 2009 to 2011. Gibbs' association with President Obama dates back to 2004. He also served early on as press secretary during now-Secretary of State John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign.

Gibbs joins a long list of former White House shills who have crossed-over into the news media once they stop taking flak from the White House Press Corps, including Tony Snow (Fox News), Clinton White House Communications Director George Stephanopoulos (ABC News), Pierre Sallinger (ABC News), Bill Moyers (PBS) and Dana Perino (Fox News), though, to be fair, some of them were making a return trip.

Not surprisingly, public skepticism spikes whenever a former presidential spokesperson appears as a talking head on a network to offer informed, "objective" commentary about an opposition party's position or representative. It doesn't thrill lifetime journalists either to see these ex-shills begin their ink-stained wretch career on the top rung of the news media ladder.

NYT: Facebook "Likes" Gibbs

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeThe New York Times reports today that Palo Alto, Calif.-based social network goliath Facebook hopes to land former Obama White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs for a senior slot to manage the company's communications.

Gibbs, 40, left the Obama Administration in February 2011, after serving two years as press secretary. Facebook has yet to make a formal offer to Gibbs, who was communications director during Barack Obama's senate and presidential campaigns.

Although his name has surfaced as a candidate to chair the Democratic National Committee, Gibbs would cash in were he to join Facebook, where he would likely receive a hefty salary and shares in the company ahead of Facebook's anticipated Initial Public Offering in 2012. Before he was purportedly poked by Facebook, Gibbs was expected to play a prominent role in President Obama's re-election campaign.

Although many members of the White House press corps would just as soon "de-friend" Gibbs, that he knows his way around the Washington, D.C. corridors of power would be an asset to Facebook, which has bolstered its lobbying efforts before the FTC and Defense Intelligence Agency, the Times reports.