When Charlie Rose asked Wolffe how may interviews he had conducted with the president, Wolffe responded, “I counted it more than a dozen. And among reporters covering Obama, Wolffe was granted tremendous access. In interviews, Wolffe has said that it was then-Senator Obama’s idea that he write a book about the campaign, one that would be reminiscent of Teddy White’s Making of the President. With his reporting at Newsweek, which some saw as being overly sympathetic to the Obama camp, Wolffe established a rapport with the president. Believe me, there is no conflict of interest.” There's no muddy waters,” she said, adding, “Where are the jobs in newspapers and magazines? What are people supposed to do? In the past, it was a very different world. Sean Desmond, Wolffe’s editor who worked on Renegade, did not respond to calls, nor did Tina Constable, Crown’s publisher.ĭahl said criticism of her client is unfair and fueled by professional jealousy. A spokesperson for Crown did not return multiple calls by deadline. Crown, which published Wolffe’s Renegade, is also the publisher of Obama’s bestsellers The Audacity of Hope and Dreams of My Father. The reporting would take place at the beginning of 2010. Without mentioning Bob Woodward by name, Wolffe hints in his proposal that the style of an all-knowing omniscient narrative account is dead, and that he would reinvent the genre with in-the-room access to the top players.
According to a source with knowledge of the proposal, Wolffe would write chapters about the following topics: the President, the Inner Circle, National Security, the Economy, the East Wing, the Executive Mansion, the Communications Shop, Domestic Policy, the Travel Office, and the Vice President's office. Wolffe’s new book is seeking to go deep inside the White House. Writing in the Daily Kos yesterday, Olbermann also admitted to being “caught flat-footed” and remarked that “what appears to be the truth here is certainly not what Richard told us about his non-news job.” (Wolffe joined Public Strategies, Inc., in March. Two days later, MSNBC told Politico that the network should have divulged Wolffe’s corporate affiliations to its viewers, and will do so in the future. “Having Richard Wolffe host an MSNBC program-or serving as an almost daily ‘political analyst’-is exactly tantamount to MSNBC's just turning over an hour every night to a corporate lobbyist,” wrote Salon’s Glenn Greenwald on August 1. Last Friday, he filled in for Keith Olbermann on “Countdown,” prompting protestations from bloggers and media reporters. Wolffe has come under fire in recent days for wearing two hats: that of a journalist and a corporate flack.
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