Glenn Beck is right. God help us all.

I'm sorry I referred to Anita Dunn as an oxygen thief.

After listening to her speech, or at least this excerpt, it's quite clear that she's not an oxygen thief. She's BRAIN-DEAD, so she's not consuming any oxygen at all.

What a total fool! While she was talking, I was looking for the Jim Henson puppeteers manipulating her mouth and body.

You...have...got...to...be...kidding...me.

We are so screwed.

Rod Dreher comes to his senses.

Rod Dreher is his old self again.

Thank you, Jesus.

Stupid for sure, but how is it any different than Pat Buchanan - a Nixon and Reagan speech writer, no less - praising Hitler as "a individual of great courage"?

But yeah, I the administration needs to dump her, fast, and just ignore Fox news.

Since when did quoting a few words of someone else's with approval connote approval of their entire life and work? Are we I supposed to disagree with the line that 'Whoever lights the torch of war in Europe can wish for nothing but chaos'? Can we not separate out what someone writes, makes, thinks or preaches from the rest of their life?

I was in Westminster Cathedral the other day, and amongst other things I wandered around looking at Eric Gill's Stations of the Cross. Gill was a sexual monster, and, when that came to light, there were calls for the work to be removed. The Church had the good sense to refuse. Bishop George Stack stated, wisely, that "There was no consideration given to taking these down. A work of art stands in its own right. Once it has been created it takes on a life of its own." And that holds true for works of philosophy as well.

No, Glenn Beck is not right. You yourself say "Do I think that Dunn is a Maoist? Of course not." But that's exactly what Glenn Beck wants his viewers to think.

You (reasonably) think that it was stupid for Ms Dunn quote Mao (alongside Mother Theresa) in a speech, but recognize that she's not actually a Maoist. Beck explicitly claims that she "worships" Mao.

Rod, you're no Glenn Beck, thank goodness. Don't give him undeserved credit.

What in the heck is the matter with her tongue??? LOL
Just looking at her you can tell she's an idiot...or a lizard...LOL

Glenn Beck is right, Again. Anyone who would turn to Mao's philosophies repeatedly as she says she does must be a sympathizer in the very least. After all she is old enough that she should know the history of this terrible person.

Moreover, Glenn Beck is right on the others in the administration he is claiming as well. I think the only reason people have a hard time understanding his point is that they don't know what communism is any more. You can't claim that he hasn't done his homework. Try to find another Talking head, opinion show host, or journalist who has studied as much or is as well read as he is in learning about the hallmarks of these political philosophies. He does this to be sure he has is right. And of those who might know what he is talking about, he is the only person on the airwaves who has the COURAGE to actually speak the truth and let the consequences happen what may.

I for one happen to know a little about what he is talking about and he is RIGHT AGAIN. If you wish to preserve this great nation everyone would do better to study what he is trying to convey and get this mess cleaned up in Washinton while there still is time.

Where is this list of political correct historical figures who can and cannot be safely referenced? And if Mao is near the top, doesn't ever slave owning Founding Father have to be somewhere lower down? How much do we have to disavow Winton Churchill for his barbaric attitudes regarding British colonial subjects?

Mike

I guess Dunn didn't get the message from John Lennon: "But when you go carrying pictures of Chariman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow."

Rod,
Glenn Beck told us the truth about ACORN, the truth about the Mao admiring person, and others. The MSM has given us nothing.

The real story here is not that a bombastic flamethrowing publicity hound is stoking these fires for the sake of ratings (if you are correct about your assumptions RE: Beck).

The real story is that no one in the MSM, including the hard news part of Fox, is investigating anything about ACORN, Van Jones, Anita Dunn, or almost anything else about Obama, the problems with his bealth care bill, the tea parties, etc.

We have always had irresponsible media hounds, but we currently don't have a functioning free press. Why are you so focused on Glenn Beck and not using your influence in the media to restore its proper function in a democracy?

Again, a little common sense will tell you that it's not possible for someone to admire the actual works of both Mother Theresa and Mao.

Again, a little common sense will tell you that some people can indeed do that.

The Maoist and Dunn apologists and red diaper babies in this combox are unbelievable.

As they say, it doesn't take all kinds, but we sure have got all kinds.

People who don't admire Mao don't consider him one of their [two] favorite political philosophers whom they constantly turn to.

This woman is a Maoist, and her defenders and apologists are either Maoists or disingenuous to an extreme. And Obama and his crew have shown their political and philosophical colors too many times for people to feign color-blindness.

And it's not racist to call a duck a duck. Wake up, folks.

Hard to know whether to laugh or cry at the oafs who demand that we interpret this woman's Maoist sympathies in "context."

Nobody on the right side of the spectrum is EVER given that benefit of the doubt. Trent Lott lost his Senate leadership position because he made routine flattering comments about Strom Thurmond, which were disingenously interpreted as "code for racism." Right above in these comboxes, there is an outright false statement that suggesting Pat Buchanan admires Adolf Hitler! And of course the Rush Limbaugh/NFL nonsense gave us days of tedious controversy over "racist" statements which Limbaugh apparently never made.

And to those who exhort us to watch the whole video rather than just the key excerpt: Was that your attitude toward the infamous Rodney King video in 1992? Because people who watched the full video of that incident, including all 12 of the jurors who acquitted the police officers of brutality, overwhelmingly concluded that the force used in the excerpt most people saw was justified. But I didn't hear anyone on the Left pleading for "context" back then.

Here a Mao, there a Mao, Everywhere a Mao Mao:

"The Family’s main role in practical politics, as Sharlet demonstrates in considerable detail, has been to foster ties between the US and tyrants abroad. Christ’s men in government, it turns out, are not really interested in the complexities of theology. According to the Family’s calculus, to love Jesus is to love worldly power, for there is no authority but of God (Romans 13) and hence the powerful of the Earth are God’s anointed ones. Through the decades the Family has reached across the waters to join hands with some of the world’s most repressive regimes: Suharto in Indonesia, Park in South Korea, Medici in Brazil, Duvalier in Haiti, Selassie in Ethiopia, Siad Barre in Somalia. In the view of Doug Coe, the group’s current leader, the 20th century figures who best exemplified a New Testament approach to power were Hitler, Stalin and Mao."

http://minnesotaindependent.com/4681/imperial-jesus-family-author-jeff-sharlet-on-the-secret-history-of-the-other-christian-right

Simon:

Right above in these comboxes, there is an outright false statement that suggesting Pat Buchanan admires Adolf Hitler!

He said, it, I didn't:

In a 1977 Globe-Democrat column discussing John Toland's biography of Adolf Hitler, Buchanan wrote:

“ Though Hitler was indeed racist and anti-Semitic to the core, a man who without compunction could commit murder and genocide, he was also an individual of great courage, a soldier's soldier in the Great War, a political organizer of the first rank, a leader steeped in the history of Europe, who possessed oratorical powers that could awe even those who despised him...Hitler's success was not based on his extraordinary gifts alone. His genius was an intuitive sense of the mushiness, the character flaws, the weakness masquerading as morality that was in the hearts of the statesmen who stood in his path.[121]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Buchanan#.22Great_courage.22_controversy

Reply To Davis,
A 5 1/2 minute excerpt would seem to preclude it being ''taken out of context''.

unless you think that the previous 30 seconds show her saying, "I am about to make a 5 1/2 minute joke that I hope you all find funny."

It is what it is whether it is exposed by Beck or the Pope. What is most disturbing is that the news media has not picked it up.

SDG writes: But her comment does imply that in simultaneously embracing Mother Teresa and Mao she doesn't feel the need to distance herself from either of their respective actions along the lines you mention.

Maybe she felt it was obvious?

Maybe in 21st century America we can give people the benefit of the doubt that they're not actually admirers of the Cultural Revolution?

The analogy with Reagan visiting Bitburg is excellent. I thought it was stupid and insensitive of Reagan to do that. It was right for people to be outraged at the visit to Bitburg. But I don't remotely think that Reagan was in fact a Nazi.

Likewise, Ms Dunn said something stupid and insensitive. That doesn't translate to "Ms Dunn is a Maoist."

You guys really need to revisit what C.S. Lewis had to say about the moral danger in seeking pleasure through believing evil of others.

Who cares if she is actually, philosophically a Maoist?

What she said--without irony or humor (as in John McCain's reference) and without reference to non-ideological attributes (as in Buchanan's reference to Hitler, who was decorated for valor during the First World War)--was that Mao was one of her favorite political philosophers and went on to quote him in a way that celebrates his murderous revolution.

Why is this person still serving in an American presidential administration?

"your name" above was me.

No one who considers Mao Zedong to be one's favorite political philosopher to whom one always turns to is fit for this job, or for any political job in the United States. Period.

That's like saying that one turns to Hannibal Lecter for culinary advice. That's not to deny that Mr. Lecter doesn't know how to pair fava beans and chianti. But if one looks to such a person for advice and guidance and inspiration, one is seriously messed up!!

And the same is true for Ms. Dumb - er, Dunn.

What a load of codswallop her defenders and apologizers are trying to make us accept.

Anita Dunn probably moves in circles where saying and believing something like that is by no means out of the ordinary. Of course they don't really believe that mass murder, Cultural Revolution, laogai and all the other horrors wrought by Mao's revolution is, you know, okay, but many left-liberals downplay the evils of communism, and in fact are far more sensitive to the supposed dangers of anti-communism.

So saying someone is your favorite philosopher is an endorsement of their behavior. You can't admire someone's philosophy without being saddled with their outcomes?

If you admire Pope John Paul II as a theologian, they you support child molestation and sexual abuse; all things PJPII allowed to flourish on his watch? If you admire the traditions of the Orthodox Church, you suppport genocide against Muslims; something the Orthodox turned a blind-eye to less than 20 years ago?

Maybe in your circles, this is the kind of reasoning that makes sense.

Davis,

"So saying someone is your favorite philosopher is an endorsement of their behavior. You can't admire someone's philosophy without being saddled with their outcomes?"

The slipperiness with which you slide from "behavior" to "outcomes" and from precipitating crimes against humanity to "turning a blind eye" (even more remote than "outcomes") to other crimes is really indefensible in this context. Is this the kind of reasoning that makes sense in your circles?

jaybird says: "Stupid for sure, but how is it any different than Pat Buchanan - a Nixon and Reagan speech writer, no less - praising Hitler as 'a individual of great courage'?"

No, it's not any different, jaybird, and that's the point. Pat Buchanan is a NUT. Are you comparing Anita Dunn to Pat Buchanan? If so, I accept your comparison.

They're both NUTS. They're both scary.

Except one happens to hold a position of great power in the American White House, and the other is a marginalized occasional guest on MessNBC.

I don't what's more disorienting:

1. That I'm agreeing with Glenn Beck.

2. That this com thread is rife with cultish lefties equivocating like mad to explain this thing (even resorting to bringing up that old hoary Wal Mart trope).

3. That the White House seems to have been overrun by some bizarre Manchurian Candidate conspiracy in which Mao is cited approvingly as a great political philosopher.

4. That Anita Dunn has a creepy dry mouth throughout that speech and keeps smacking her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

5. That at least one commenter doesn't seem to understand the difference between John McCain's witticism and this witch's admiration for a genocidal murderer.

I agree with the Reason blogger. I want my reality back. And I want to know who slipped LSD in my soda can about a year ago and sent me on this bad acid trip we all seem to be journeying on.

As I watched that YouTube video, I kept glancing at my hands to figure out if I might be having a vivid lucid nightmare.

You know what's really scaring the hell out of me as I watch this video? Her colorless, bland, bureaucratic personality (complete with the dry mouth smacking). She reminds me of a few left-wing high school and college teachers I had. They're the kind of people who would have been right at home being Pol Pot's enforcers.

I thought the Mao quote was more like those who occasionally cite Goering: "when I hear the word culture, I reach for my gun".

Which I've seen both liberals and conservatives use, often when dismissing some particularly lame art, music, or film.

Rod,

You minimize, you trivialize, and therefore, albeit inadvertently, you apologize for what Dunn has done, for what Dunn ought to be held responsible for.

Sympathetic invocation of Mao Tse Tung without any qualification is not "nitwitted."

Rather, it is *evil.*

It is morally equivalent to Holocaust denial.

In fact, it is, implicitly, Holocaust denial -- albeit denial of one of those other Holocausts, one of those that one can't mention in polite society without being labelled a McCarthyite or, even worse, a Glenn Beck fan.

It's worth bearing in mind that we are in the midst this fall of the ongoing 20th anniversary of the collapse of Communism in Europe -- a milestone that is receiving no commemoration whatsoever from the left-liberal establishment press, nor (unsurprisingly) from the Obama administration.

One advantage the right has always had on the left is that right-wing radicalism, totalitarianism, and genocide are so utterly and justly taboo that those on the right are liberated from the sinful temptation to romanticize past evils of a radical or totalitarian or genocidal sort that have been done in the name of the right.

The left -- to its disadvantage -- has never been liberated from such sinful temptation by any comparable taboo, and -- to its thus far entirely unrepentant and unredeemed shame -- the left has indulged itself deeply in the sinful temptation to romanticize past evils of a radical or totalitarian or genocidal sort that have been done in the name of the left.

In the midst of the economic crisis, Thomas Friedman daydreams in the New York Times about how wonderful it would be for the U.S. to be governed by a Communist Chinese style autocracy instead of an American republican democracy.

In the midst of the healthcare debate, Peter Singer daydreams in the New York Times about how wonderful it would be for the U.S. to adopt Communist Chinese style eugenic policy instead of adhering to Judeo-Christian moral norms about the sanctity of all human life.

And in the midst of an effort to marginalize and to demonize opposition to the Obama administration in general and Glenn Beck and his viewers in particular, the administration apparatchik given the task of overseeing such marginalization and demonization reveals herself to be a self-professed Maoist, reveals herself to be just exactly, precisely the sort of left-wing-radical, Communist-sympathizing fruit-bat that Beck has said correctly make up a frighteningly large proportion of Obama's inner circle and administrative team.

Glen Beck didn't make all this up, because he *couldn't* make this up.

The greatest satirist of all time could not have made this up -- not Moliere, not Pope, not Dryden, not Swift.

This would me laugh so hard I couldn't breathe -- that is, it would do that if it weren't all so chilling, so frightening, so repugnant, that it takes my breath away.

Another faux outrage for a two minute hate. Well done Rod.

She worked on the campaign of Senator John Glenn (D-OH....She has been the top adviser to Senator Bill Bradley (D-NJ), including serving as the chief strategist for his presidential campaign, Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN), and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD).

My God! Look at that list of ultra-leftwing Maoists!! This proves it.

Quiddity October 16, 2009 1:19 PM I thought the Mao quote was more like those who occasionally cite Goering: "when I hear the word culture, I reach for my gun".

Quiddity:

Anita Dunn doesn't "occasionally cite" Mao.

Dunn describes Mao and Mother Teresa as "two of my favorite political philosophers...the two people that I turn to most."

She's a Maoist.

Stop defending the indefensible.
Stop normalizing the absurd.
Stop nicifying the detestable.
Stop apologizing for this inexcusable and unacceptable mindset and remark.
Stop justifying the unjustifiable.

Just stop it! (Bob Newhart)

During the presidential transition of 2008-09, Dunn trained White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

Gosh, that says it all. He's excruciatingly terrible. He makes one pine for the Ciceronian days of Scott McClellan. He makes Baghdad Bob look like an honest broker and a font of truth-telling. [Insert your own worst spokesman joke here.]

The fact that nitwits like Beck try to stir people up into a frenzy over stuff like this is one of the things that helps keep real intelligence out of American politics. Any educated person is going to have influences who are far from noble in everything they did or taught. Some of my own political influences--Aristotle, Augustine, St. Thomas, Byzantine church-state symphony, pre-Revolutionary Russian political philosophy (including several Marxists)--certainly have plenty of unsavory elements that would surely keep me forever out of politics if we're going to play this silly guilt by association game.

I think it might be a good thing if we got a true, unapologetic Marxist elected to a high office in this country. Then maybe some people would see the light that even shouting Marx from the rooftops doesn't mean that one has to support every atrocity that has been done by Marxist-influenced politicians and movements. And then perhaps we could move past these silly political games and return politics to the high-level philosophical discourse it ought to be, rather than pandering to the mindless reactionism that's unfortunately so popular among many crowds right now.

Why do people keep trying to dismiss or excuse or applaud what Dunn said by trying to relativize it, decontextualize it, change it, say that Mao is just one of her influences, etc.?

SHE SAYS THAT HE IS ONE OF THE TWO PEOPLE SHE TURNS TO THE MOST.

THE MOST.

What part of "the most" don't some people understand?

I think it might be a good thing if we got a true, unapologetic National Socialist elected to a high office in this country. Then maybe some people would see the light that even shouting from the rooftops doesn't mean that one has to support every atrocity that has been done by Nazi-influenced politicians and movements. And then perhaps we could move past these silly political games and return politics to the high-level philosophical discourse it ought to be, rather than pandering to the mindless reactionism that's unfortunately so popular among many crowds right now.

There, fixed it for you. Let's see how this version flies.

jaybird, to be fair, Buchanan has been an irrelevant blowhard for years. Please keep bringing up other nutters to make your case like your comment about "The Family" leader.

No one is addressing it, jaybird, because you sound like a jackass, and everyone has been stunned into silence by your willful blindness.

The hole is getting bigger. Keep digging.

Jillian, "the infamous Southern white male inability to discern mildly ironic tone lives on."

Yes, we all somehow missed the droll wit shining through Anita Dunn's bloodless, cotton-mouthed, slack-faced, dead-eyed, monotone, humorless, minute-long explication of why Mao is one of "the two people I turn to most."

Gee, how did we miss the irony until you revealed to us?

"Think about that for a second."

Jillian, you and others on this thread are making the case better than Glenn Beck's video could. You're so deeply intellectually dishonest, and it's all laid bare for us to see.

I feel like I'm watching a Hollywood producer's bad pitch for a B-movie combining the ABC miniseries "Amerika" with "Red Dawn" and "The Manchurian Candidate."

Everyone, nothing to see here, move along. It was merely a "jest."

Asinine.

We are not blind, Jillian. You are.

Quit reading the inscrutable entrails and tea leaves for us.

We can see what we can see.

Davis: Repeating your argument from analogy doesn't constitute a response to the rebuttal from disanalogy.

BTW, I never said she was a Maoist.

Re. "mildly ironic tone": To ring a change on a question I asked earlier, how heinous does a tyrant and mass murderer have to be before it is not only stupid and insensitive but morally repugnant to publicly describe him as "one of one favorite political philosophers," with or without a "mildly ironic tone"?

Jaybird,

The same question I asked of Jillian applies to you as well. Assuming she is being droll or sarcastic, is it appropriate to make such remarks about one of the greatest mass murders in human history? People would have already called for her head had she sarcastically called Hitler one of her favorite political philosophers. Why should it be any different with Mao, a totalitarian dictator who deliberately and systematically killed millions of people?

rr

But they're not in the closet. That's the point.

And the MSM refuses to admit this. Refuses to show this. Refuses to call a spade a spade, or to even talk about spades.

When FOX News is the only adversarial press, something is wrong with journalism and news stations. They've abdicated their responsibility. They've sold their birthright. They've cozied up to the emperor, and drink his Flavor Aid.

And rightfully so. Even if you are correct that she spoke in a "mildly ironic tone," at a minimum she showed poor communication skills and a lack of judgment as her remarks could very easily be interpreted differently and it just isn't proper to flippantly talk about a monster such as Mao as a favorite political philosopher.

You're being a willing instrument of efforts at imposing a selectively applied right wing PC speech code, "rr". Is Stalin's "How many divisions does the Pope have?" going to be banned, too? Or Hitler's "Well, that's what young men are for" when looking at a casualty report from the Eastern Front?

This is just Glenn Beck repeating what he did to Van Jones, and people like Rod are cynically playing along. This is where Culture Warrior meets the Commandment against false witness, and people like you and Rod and Beck always take the first over the second when dealing with a perceived political opponent.

Stupid for sure, but how is it any different than Pat Buchanan - a Nixon and Reagan speech writer, no less - praising Hitler as "a individual of great courage"?

I know I'm late to this, but that comment was in a column condemning appeasement. Anyhow, Buchanan's point in that seventies piece was that you can't treat a guy who won an Iron Cross in the Great War with kid gloves. You have to fight him with concrete and firm action. This was then analogized to the Cold War and the flaws in Detente.

It's rather ironic given how Buchanan would later change his views that he's gigged for this quote in an anti-Hitler review, but there it is. His isolationist and protectionist views developed after 1988, well after he was out any administration. His stranger views on WWII developed later after that as he made isolation an end instead of a means.

Jillian,

LOL! Your characterization of my own political views made me laugh. I've never had a cable package that came with FOX news. From what I've heard about Glenn Beck, he strikes me as a bit crazy, though I can't say for sure as obviously I never watch his show. At any rate, I stopped supported the mainstream GOP a long time ago. I'm a paleocon with a libertarian streak and supported Ron Paul in 2008. So no, I'm not an instrument of the right wing PC speech.

More important than me, you clearly don't get it. It is one thing to quote Stalin's "How many divisions does the Pope have?" It is quite another to say, even in jest, that Stalin, who also was a mass murderer, is a favorite political philosophers that one turns to the most. This isn't about PC speech. It is judgment. If you can't see that at a minimum it is tasteless and insensitive to call Mao a favorite political philosopher, then you really are clueless and it is more likely than it is you and not me who is guilty of blind partisanship.

rr

True story - I was recently acosted on a street corner by someone who was clearly part of a Trotskyist/Socialist organization, and I told them that joke. They didn't get it, which is one of the reasons I steer clear of people on the ideological left or right these days. No sense of humor.

That's another reason why I like Rod's blog - he has a good sense of humor. A bit twisted. Which I like.

It's quite mainstream and unremarkable for movement conservatives to defend Augusto Pinochet--torture chambers, rape-rooms, and all.

No, it isn't.

The Left, on the other hand, thinks it cute and harmless for young American "idealists" to prance around wearing the image of Che Guevarra, a ruthless, cold-blooded murderer. I doubt they sell Pinochet T-shirts at CPAC.

And Pat Buchanan to this day romanticizes apartheid South Africa and says that Hitler didn't really want a war.

Bunk. Buchanan is about as far from being a "movement conservative" as one can get. He's a paleocon, and ostracized for that reason by the neocons and mainstream right.

Rightly or wrongly, however, Buchanan believes in a foreign policy in focused narrowly on advancing America's direct interest and avoiding conflict except when threatened directly. That's what made him oppose both the Gulf War and the Iraq War. It's also why he believes that the U.S. was better off with the Apartheid government in South Africa (which had been a reliable ally going back to World War II) as opposed to the ANC espousing its typical third world anti-American drivel. He also thinks the anti-interventionists were correct about U.S. involvement in Europe in the late 1930s.

I don't particularly agree with Buchanan's view on these points, especially about World War II, but they have nothing whatsoever to do with racism, much less admiration for Hitler.

I might add that the Wikipedia quote above, ostensibly from a 1977 Buchanan column, does not indicate the slightest admiration for Hitler's policies, character or objectives.

Re: the image of Che Guevarra, a ruthless, cold-blooded murderer.

every time that I think there might be some sense to 'crunchy conservatism', i hear the conservatives say something idiotic like this, which reminds me why I'm not a conservative.

yeah, I think I will stay with the term "crunchy Left" instead.

Sorry, Hector. But I happen to know people whose relatives were murdered by Che Guevarra. And they weren't oligarchs or capitalist oppressors or Battista officials or anything of the sort.

No amount of lipstick can dress up a pig like Che.

"Nitwit"

NITWIT?! Is that what we call the Iranian President when he denies the Holocaust? Hitler was a rank amateur. He only killed about 11 million people.

Stalin murdered over 20 million.

Mao is believed to have murdered 50 million, to as many as 70 million.

A Mao apologist is not a nitwit. A Mao apologist is as evil as the evil they turn a blind eye toward.

How would this loon react to a hate crime? To a woman being raped? To the government executing the entire family in every other house on her street? Then she has a well-formed capacity to tell right from wrong, virtue from evil. She just doesn't mind if evil is done in order to advance what she accepts is a noble agenda.

That's the sort of evil that advances the culture of death, that spawns more mass murder.

The end justifies the means, or as was said by Lenin, "Anything is moral that advances the revolution."

"every time that I think there might be some sense to 'crunchy conservatism', i hear the conservatives say something idiotic like this, which reminds me why I'm not a conservative. yeah, I think I will stay with the term 'crunchy Left'" instead."

So, you're not a conservative because ... conservatives say idiotic things?

Well, as long as you never hear anyone on the Left say idiotic things, you should be all right.

"In any case this woman is clearly dangerous and needs to go home and bake cookies. I hope Glen Beck keeps de-robing these cockroaches one by one."

Good grief, I hope this is really liberal concern trollery. For your sake. Otherwise I might have to join the crunchy Left like Hector.

Oh wait. No I won't.

If she stopped at "Two people not usually" mentioned together, the joke excuse might fly. When she adds that Mao is one of the people to whom "she turns to most" this is a statement that OBVIOUSLY disqualifies her for public service.

Continuing a project from the Nobel thread, I submit the following list. They are people that may claim to be open-minded, or sophisticated. But, rather, they obviously carry an agenda impervious to being informed by mundane things like facts. They may have interesting things to say, sometimes, but their analysis is hopelessly skewed, and persuading them on anything will be a fool's errand:

Richard Bottoms*
Manfred Arcane
Mean Mister Mustard
John(2)
CAP
M.B.
Davis*
Jillian*
Bradley
James Nicola
MBunge
J
Nate W.
Jaybird

* Indicates someone who distinguished him or herself with water-carrying behavior on both threads.

Subject to revision, of course. This project is new. I imagine the list will clarify over time.

Hector,

For the record, I pretty much agree with you. The problem I had with the speech was that she wasn't taking an idea from Mao (or any other dictator) that she might have found redeemable, but that she did seem to be holding up the man himself as a source of inspiration--as if we're supposed to find inspiration in the "motivational" words he spoke shortly before unleashing one of the worst reigns of terror that the world has ever seen. The speech was politically stupid, at best.

My reaction in my first post was less about the speech and more about Beck and some of the commenters here, who seem to go looking for any chance they can get to smear a liberal (or even a fellow conservative) with a guilt-by-influence charge. It's that kind of attitude that keeps politicians from openly owning up to their philosophical influences and consequently, I think, pretty much guarantees that nobody with any philosophical sophistication would dare stray into American politics.

sorry for the double post

Shorter Jillian:

"Me love Mao long time."

Another faux outrage for a two minute hate. Well done Rod.

exactly. people come to this site decrying the liberal culture of modernity - and then proceed to act like the worst products of the liberal culture of modernity. If you can no longer tell the difference between that which is truly threatening and worthy of outrage from that which is dumb and trivial then you have become a true member of the Hanah Montana/Kate and Jon culture of the superficial.

That there are 20 million people right now who are slaves, that thousands of children die every day of starvation and disease, that the greatest mass extinction event in human history is going on now, that people are murdered for their religious beliefs, their sexual orientation, or just simply because their husbands figured they were allowed to do it, these are among the many things worthy of outrage.

Some silly women with poor judgement is not one of the things worthy of outrage.

If a conservative even said Mussolini was one of his favorite philosophers I think they'd rightly look bad.

Okay, that's a nice thought experiment.

Pick any mainstream conservative in the US. Imagine that they're videotaped at a graduation speech joking about quotes from "two of my favorite philosophers, Henry David Thoreau and Benito Mussolini ..."

How would you respond to that. I suppose I might think it was funny. If it was someone who I was predisposed to dislike, I might get all huffy and say that it was in really poor taste, remember the invasion of Ethiopia, etc. etc. etc.

What I probably wouldn't do is assume that the speaker was actually a Fascist. First, because I don't seriously believe that most Republicans are secretly Fascists. Second, because the inclusion of both Thoreau and Mussolini makes that whole idea ludicrous. It's called common sense, and it appears to be in very short supply nowadays in certain quarters.

Hector: Re: the image of Che Guevarra, a ruthless, cold-blooded murderer.

every time that I think there might be some sense to 'crunchy conservatism', i hear the conservatives say something idiotic like this, which reminds me why I'm not a conservative.

Hector, in what sense is it "idiotic" to call Che a ruthless, cold-blooded murderer. Seriously, that's exactly what he was.
Read this lengthy piece from The New Republic by Alvaro Vargas Llosa for the evidence.

Republicans, masters of false outrage.

"War is politics with blood; politics is war without blood," Gingrich said, citing Mao."

"Karl Rove, another Fox News contributor, wrote in a December 2008 Wall Street Journal op-ed that President Bush "encouraged me to read a Mao biography."

I am sure the right-wing nuts will be demanding their heads, right?

As far as Anita Dunn is concerned, I really don't know anything about her. All I can say is, back in the 1970's when I owned a copy of Mao's Little Red Book, we thought that people who quoted from it were idiots.

Indeed. It's kinda funny that some people here seem to think I'm defending this woman - even as I've said more than once that she should be canned - because on a few other left-ish message boards/blogs I post on, real RCPUSA/A.N.S.W.E.R.-type commies and modern Maoist sympathizers are one of my favorite targets for mockery and derision. There's just no pleasing people, I guess.

Polichinello: The problem, Jay, is that these things were factually correct. Hitler did distinguish himself in battle. He won an Iron Cross--on the recommendation of a Jewish Lieutenant, no less. This does not make him a moral examplar. We can find plenty of monsters in history who showed courage under fire. But these are important psychological considerations when you're trying to understand why someone like Hitler took the actions he did. This is especially key when you're trying to apply those lessons to current events, which Buchanan was doing.

Okay, fair enough. But if one can laud those instances of courage in applying Hitler's biography to current events, as a matter of history, then I think you can arguably make the case that what this woman did is not that different - She quoted Mao approvingly on his determination on overcoming incredible obstacles.... Which he did, it's a matter of historical record.

But eitherway, I agree it's not something that someone tasked with Official Whitehouse Communications should ever say publically. Her words carry a lot of weight, and she should have been far more careful in her statements as such. So for the last time, I think she should be fired.

Have a good weekend, everybody. Mao-mao-mao, papa, mao-mao-mao.

From Becks' The Real America

I wish I were the president, just for the 747 and the cabinet I could assemble. I would have the best minds that I could find with a special eye out for those people who would vehemently disagree with each other. I'd let them argue it out and just listen. Well, I'm not the president so the jet doesn't take off when I tell it to and I can't hire great minds to argue.

So, I did the next best thing, I drove to the bookstore. Here is who I put on my "book cabinet": I got Alan Dershowitz. He's opinionated, obnoxious and at times-when he's not talking about the OJ Simpson case-he makes a good point. Let's see, let's put him in a room with... Adolf Hitler. I'd love to see those guys go at it. So next: Hitler's Mein Kampf. The something by Pope John Paul, along with Carl Sagan. I looked really hard, who else would I like to see in a room together? Hey, how about Nietzsche and Billy Graham? Yeah!

So Beck thinks Hitler is a great mind????? What's he complaing about with Dunn? Faux outrage. Two minute hate. Boost ratings. Rinse repeat. What a bunch of suckers we are.....

Your Name: I can't figure out which makes your comments less apropos: Your argumentum ad Beck (if we can tar and feather Beck with the same brush, Dunn walks free!), or your equivalency between what Beck wrote and what Dunn said (too facile to be worth rebutting at this late hour when my weekend should be beginning).

Republicans, masters of false outrage.

"War is politics with blood; politics is war without blood," Gingrich said, citing Mao."

"Karl Rove, another Fox News contributor, wrote in a December 2008 Wall Street Journal op-ed that President Bush "encouraged me to read a Mao biography."

I am sure the right-wing nuts will be demanding their heads, right?

Rod keeps saying he's through being suckered by the Republican noise machine... but.

Rod,

Thank you for listening and following this story. Glenn is not out there for ratings (they help I'm sure), but something is seriously wrong when these connections continue to pop-up all over this White House administration! Thank you for asking the questions!

You're right, Rod. Anyone who would quote Mao like that, ignoring his horrific crimes, barely counts as a human being.

She says she got the quote from Lee Atwater.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/16/becks.dunn/

Well gang, this has been a revealing experience. And just darned disturbing.

The apologetic lengths some of my (presumably) fellow Americans on this thread have gone to, twisting themselves into rhetorical knots, throwing up every worn trope, mining Wikipedia and Google to find any other quotation of Mao -- all to defend the indefensible, all to explain away what we can all plainly see by watching the video for ourselves.

It would have been refreshing to see more of the usual suspects take on a posture of at least minimal intellectually honesty and agree that Dunn's comments disqualify her (on any number of levels) for the position of power she now occupies.

The fact that you did not speaks volumes -- and says much more than any repeat viewings of her disturbingly robotic lecture ever could.

I have hitherto avoided or ignored much of the fearful whisperings about Obama and his administration. After this rather malodorous display of panicky defensiveness on this thread, I'm now wondering and worrying much more than I did this morning.

MotherLodeBeth,

Did you ignore the previous 126 comments so you could plow right into your prescribed point that has already been addressed and hammered multiple times? Is it too much to ask that you engage your neurons and synapses in an original process rather than parroting the thoughts of others?

RR,

The executions in Cuba in 1959-60 were also in the aftermath of a war of liberation against a thoroughly corrupt and evil oligarchy. With the important difference that that oligarchy was ready and willing to crush the Cuban revolution, with American support, if Cuba had given them the chance (just like they did in the rest of Latin America). That wasn't the case in France- the Vichy era was good and gone and stood no chance of coming back to power. Which makes the case for mercy, as opposed to justice, in France stronger than it was in Cuba.

I disagree very strongly, with the rest of your post, but I don't want to derail this thread, which was originally about Mao, not about Cuba and not about "El Che".

Whether from the left or the right, it seems arrogant that whenever an American praises a despot we automatically preface our criticisms with "Of course I don't believe they mean it, but ..."

What is so unique and exceptional about Americans that we cannot imagine that anyone in this country could believe that murder of political opponents is a valid form of expression? Many Chinese loved Chairman Mao. Many Europeans loved Hitler. Many Khmer loved Pol Pot. There is nothing in American water that makes us immune to hate, idolatry and moral relativism.

The only protections we have from such thinking are eternal vigilance, the teaching of history, and a realistic understanding of the potentials of human evil.

I don't know this woman. She may be perfectly nice or she may be naive. But this mistake is worthy of discussion and Dunn needs to tell us in words and deeds that she does not truly wish to follow the examples of Mao.

When Chairman Mao died in 1976, I had a Nationalist Chinese roommate, whose family had fled from the Communists to Taiwan. Nevertheless, my roommate expressed his admiration for Chairman Mao, who had in his opinion "made China great." Whatever number of Americans admire Chairman Mao, the number is far exceeded by those who do so in his own homeland.

I should also say that, although a practicing Catholic, I think Marx was a great political philosopher and I have frequently quoted at corporate meetings Deng Xiaoping's maxim that it doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white but whether it catches mice.

Dunn's real fault, like many gaffe-makers, is that she was flippant, perhaps for shock value or to ingratiate herself with a teenage audience, in describing Mao as one of her "two favorite political philosophers." But that's what people do.

Re: I think Marx was a great political philosopher

SJ,

Well, yes, but she wasn't saying that Marx was a great political philosopher, she was saying that Mao was (and namely, one of her favorites). Which is the problem. I agree with your post overall.

Ralph Wiggum,
I'm not 'associating' Mao with anyone to say that he was responsible for a great deal of famine and political murder- Mao himself is responsible for all that (though not necessarily Marx or other communists).

Richard,

Presumably, by your logic, Adolph Hitler also is "just a name in a history book to people under forty" and "just as real and relevant as Jesse James."

Perhaps you can go to the Holocaust Museum and tell them that they need not bother, since kids these days have moved on to skinny jeans and Twitter and other things more relevant than six million dead Jews.

Presumably, by your logic, slavery is also "just a word in a history book to people under forty" and "just as real and relevant as Jesse James."

Given that sense of things, perhaps you should cease and desist from your one-schtick-pony-show of playing the race card at every chance you get against people who have done absolutely nothing whatsoever of a racist sort and who benefit from past racism no more than you yourself do, and, in some cases, probably less.

Again, by your own logic, If you yourself don't have to shed any crocodile tears for the fifty million people Mao killed, why should anyone have to shed any crocodile tears for you simply because you happen to have the same skin tone as people who were enslaved not murdered and hundreds of years ago and not a generation ago?

Hector,

I'm a French historian and did my MA thesis on de Gaulle. Briefly, many French historians characterize what happened in France in 1944-45 as a minor civil war of sorts. While Germany was certainly losing the war by 1944, it still had some fight left in it as illustrated by the battle of the Bulge. At any rate, the context of the executions in France was most definitely war and liberation. I don't want to derail this thread either, so we'll just have to disagree on this.

Otherwise, I don't dispute your assertion that the American backed Batista regime was a corrupt and evil oligarchy. Nonetheless, Communist governments aren't democratic either and the Cuba government under Castro's dictatorship is well known for human rights violations. With that in mind, and considering Che Guevara's role in creating the current regime in Cuba, I see no reason to view him as a praiseworthy character.

Communist governments were and are currently (in North Korea and Cuba for example) almost universally oppressive governments. There simply is no good reason to praise (even in jest) Mao as a political philosopher or wear shirts with Che Guevara's face on the front.

rr

This would not be believable except for the fact that many Obama cohorts are self-proclaimed radical Marxists (and so is he, really).

When I was in college the Left was drinking deeply from Marxist theorists and all of their utopian views of class, economy, feminism, and world domination.

Being drunk with fantasy idealism, and under the spell of top-notch propagandists, these people pardoned the mind-numbing evil of the Marxist dictators, or perhaps never really learned the truth about them to begin with.

This Dunn, let me tell you---I feel like I met her a hundred times back in the day. She's an uninformed tool.

RR,

I'm sure that the 1944-1945 in France was a civil war of sorts. So was the period 1959-1961 in Cuba (complete with an American invasion): it was a period of bitter struggle over what the course of post-revolutionary Cuba would be, and whether the middle class would betray the interests of the peasantry just as they had during the Mexican revolution, or whether this time the revolutionaries would be able to fundamentally change the economic system (and even more, the moral order) of the country.

Suffice it to say that I disagree with you strongly on the nature of the Cuban regime and Castro, as well as on Che, but like I said, I don't want to derail this thread. Cuba is not the subject of this thread, and I wanted simply to point out that your views aren't universally shared- especially not in Latin America. I write about these issues often on my blog so you're welcome to comment there. Thomas R., same for you, I'd welcome both of your readership.

But JerryS, the Left openly pledges devotion to Marxist dictators and thugs, from Chavez and Castro to Guevara and Chairman Mao. This Dunn is just another college kid with a bad case of Stockholm syndrome.

In fact, I bet you admire Mao, too.

But guess what: some of us were also in on the game. We know the tactics, the lies, the tricks, the smokescreens, the propaganda, and the agenda. And some of us now even use refined Marxist propaganda tactics to re-install free market conservatism in the U.S. and around the world. Can you believe it? Marx is rolling over in his grave.

Maya -

You don't know me. How dare you suggest that I admire a mass murderer.

I was strictly pointing out the rank hypocrisy and inconsistency of Beck and his ilk when they use quotes to smear people.

Oh, Rod, you too. Not a peep from you when McCain quoted Mao, nor when GWB suggested Karl Rove read Mao.

Rod, maybe people think Obama is a commie because he keeps turning up to be hanging around with fans of commies. Look at his supporters who boost Castro and Hugo Chavez (think Bill Ayers, among the many), the Van Joneses and now this woman, and don't forget the supporters who had the nerve to joyously wave a HAMMER & SICKLE FLAG in front of the Whitehouse, no less, on election night.

But then again, maybe that's just me.....(but probably not). When it walks like a duck and hangs around ducks a lot, sometimes it really IS a duck.

..and btw, I believe I heard Michel Medved (who knows a thing or two about history) say Mao killed more like 50-60 million of his own citizens.
What is so admirable about that?

Cilantro Joe -

The Anita Dunn quote came from LEE ATWATER. How's that for ironic?
---------------

Obama aide fires back at Beck over Mao remarks

By Ed Hornick
CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- White House communications director Anita Dunn fired back at criticism from TV commentator Glenn Beck on Friday, saying that a Mao Tse-tung quote Beck took issue with was picked up from legendary GOP strategist Lee Atwater.

"The Mao quote is one I picked up from the late Republican strategist Lee Atwater from something I read in the late 1980s, so I hope I don't get my progressive friends mad at me," Dunn told CNN.

As for Beck's criticism: "The use of the phrase 'favorite political philosophers' was intended as irony, but clearly the effort fell flat -- at least with a certain Fox commentator whose sense of irony may be missing."

To JerryS:

Ironic, maybe, but irrelevant.

When I write my book, "Choosing Your Own Path: Don't Let the External Definition of 'Murderer of 30 Million People' Define How Good You Are Internally--Unless it Means 'Internally Good at the Brutal Annihilation of Human Life on an Unimaginable Scale'" (my editor tells me the title's too succinct), I'll make sure to mention that I got some quotes from Anita Dunn.

Also, don't miss my motivational video, "Finding Your Own Calcutta: What to Do When Mother Teresa Won't Let You Slaughter the Real One".

Even if Anita did get the quote from an unnamed twenty year-old "article or bio [she] read", and didn't, as Occam would certainly and alacritously insist, cobble together a post-culpa "but a Republican said it TOO" defense: the points I made in my first post apply identically here as well.

Here's the thing: I am not a GOP apologist. While the Right defends our "Liberty" from governmental control, it's been unvigilant about the gradual loss of our Liberty to a cult greed, consumerism, and purposeless ambition. We have an obligation to our fellow human beings. I oppose socialistic ideology not primarily because we become slaves to a Nanny State (or worse), but because we abdicate our obligation to our neighbors by outsourcing compassion to an institutional bureaucracy which can't possibly administer it as effectively, efficiently, or transformatively (yes, I mean that in a hamfisted spiritual way) as people making the conscious choice and taking conscious action to help those who are suffering.

Great. After all that, I feel a bit guilty about my afore-expressed snarkiness--but not guilty enough to retract it. Baby steps.

Uh, good morning. I see this thread has been busy overnight. I think it's done its work, and can safely be closed for business.