Moral Philosopher For The Democrats

Obama presidential adviser and communications director Anita Dunn recently made a speech in which she cited Mao Zedong (or Mao Tse-Tung, or Mousey Dung) as one of her favorite philosophers. And the speech wasn't in front of a crowd of jaded college students or SEIU members. She spoke to a gathering of high school students. She told them that Mao is one of the two people she turns to most for political guidance.

We expect college professors and radical politicians to say idiotic things like that. But this speech is one of a long series of appearances by Obama officials which frequently sound like organizational meetings of the Communist Party USA. For a man who ran for president as a moderate/liberal, Obama seems to have a very strong affinity for choosing national spokesmen and czars who are of a far left bent.

Part of Dunn's responsibility as an official and as an adult speaking to impressionable youth is not to make outrageous statements cloaked as serious discussion. One of those important responsibilities is to tell young people about past leaders who have advanced humanity, protected human rights, supported freedom and exalted the human spirit. From liberal to conservative, we disagree on who the most important of those leaders are, but choosing between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton is not the same as choosing among Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and Mao Zedong.

If you had told me in my most radical days that an official spokesman for the president of the United States would cite one of the worst mass murderers and destroyers of freedom in all of history as a philosophical guide, I would have told you that you were nuts. So used to talking leftist nonsense to her colleagues, Dunn was apparently surprised at the widespread negative reaction to her choice of moral guides. With the help of the mainstream media, she quickly tried to explain that it was "a joke." Some joke.

Nobody who attended the speech or later heard the audio or saw the video seemed to see anything that indicated that her comments were a joke. She took what she was saying very seriously, and expected the students to do so as well. She also forgot to include anything that might exculpate her later by failing to point out that she spoke to the students for the purpose of teaching them that choices produce consequences, and some choices are simply not acceptable in a free society. You like Obama? Great. You like Bush? Great. You like Mao, Stalin or Hitler? You don't belong in a civilized society. Even the far-out Beatles saw that in their song Revolution: "But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you're not going to make it with anyone anyhow." So, Ms. Dunn, tell us where the joke is.

Multiculturalism also seems to play a part in Dunn's world view. She couldn't find any epochal American hero-philosophers who weren't white (that's because she didn't look very hard), and in order to make everyone feel good, she needed to find one from a very non-white society. Hence, Mao. So, was the joke on the students, on the public, on the Chinese--who? Absolutely no explanation of her choice of one of the most vicious mass-murderers in history can justify her statement either seriously or as a joke, except one. She really believes that Mao belongs in her pantheon.

Oh. Her other favorite? Mother Teresa. A fine choice indeed, although it would mean that Dunn can't distinguish between good and evil, piety and oppression, gentleness and viciousness, tenderness and violence. Which just might be the other possible explanation for Dunn's choices. She's just plain crazy.