NEW YORK — President Barack Obama is an avid reader of the New York Times opinion section and has, on several occasions, invited two of his favorite columnists — Tom Friedman and David Brooks — over to the White House before rolling out major policy initiatives.
But Obama is apparently not a fan of Maureen Down, another high-profile writer in the Times opinion stable. Former top Obama adviser David Axelrod wrote in his memoir published Tuesday, Believer, that “no one got under Barack’s skin more than Maureen.”
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While Dowd isn’t a regular these days at Obama’s off-the-record columnist gatherings, she did score an invite after the heated exchange on the plane and visited the White House a week before the 2009 inauguration.
