Was Hilary Rosen The Obama Spin Doctor Behind Sandra Fluke?

With the new reports today that DNC consultant Hilary Rosen has been an incredibly frequent visitor to the White House – at least 35 times, including five times directly with the president of the United States – questions are arising about her role in the furor surrounding the Sandra Fluke incident. As Bill O’Reilly first reported, Sandra Fluke’s press relations was run by SKDKnickerbocker, the firm of Anita Dunn and Rosen. Fluke testified before Congress in February; on February 29, Rush Limbaugh attacked her on air, using the word “slut,” for which he later apologized.

The time line suggests that Rosen personally was an integral part of the coordinated leftist strategy to attack Limbaugh. On March 2, President Obama waded into the debate, calling Fluke personally.

On March 20, Eric Wemple of the Washington Post contacted Dunn to ask about her representation of Fluke and her level of coordination with the White House. She responded:

You should put this question directly to the White House, but I wasn’t involved in Sandra’s testimony or any arrangements around it …. My firm’s involvement with Sandra, through a friend of a friend, came about days after Rush Limbaugh attacked her on the air and the crush of media requests became more than she and a helpful friend could handle.

The connection happened within days. Within three days, no doubt, just in time for President Obama to jump into the mix.

But it wasn’t Dunn who was point-person on this case. That honor belonged to Hilary Rosen, who stated, “We are proud to provide pro-bono support to Sandra Fluke, an incredibly courageous young woman who is standing up for the rights of women everywhere in the face of sustained, personal attacks …. We were first connected to Sandra through one of her personal friends who came to us seeking our assistance.” While Dunn emailed Wemple the “Firm’s statement,” the statement wasn’t actually released until a week and a half after O’Reilly broke the news of SKDKnickerbocker’s involvement with Fluke.

Dunn added, “I am not the person who is working with her, although I would be happy and honored to do so!”

So, who was working with her? From the looks of it, Hilary Rosen. With Rosen’s close association with the White House, and the lack of visitor logs for 2012, it would be highly unlikely that there was no coordination between Rosen, the White House, and Fluke on the Limbaugh issue. And it is increasingly likely that Rosen was the PR genius advising the DNC and Obama behind the scenes.