Now We Know Why He Passed on the Dalai Lama

National Review ^ | October 17, 2009 | Victor Davis Hanson

[greyfoxx39]

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Now We Know Why He Passed on the Dalai Lama   [Victor Davis Hanson]

I am not a big fan of saying that officials should resign for stupid remarks. But interim White House communications director Anita Dunn's praise of Mao Zedong as a "political philosopher" is so unhinged and morally repugnant, that she should hang it up, pronto.

Mao killed anywhere from 50 million to 70 million innocents in the initial cleansing of Nationalists, the scouring of the countryside, the failed Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, Tibet, and the internal Chinese gulag. Dunn's praise of a genocidal monster was no inadvertent slip: She was reading from a written text and went into great detail to give the full context of the remark. Moreover, her comments were not some student outburst from 30 years ago; they were delivered on June 5, 2009. Her praise of Mao's insight and courage in defeating the Nationalists was offered long after the full extent of Mao's mass-murdering had been well documented. Mao killed more people than any other single mass killer in the history of civilization.

So where do all these people, so intimate with our president (Dunn is the wife of his personal lawyer), come from? A right-wing attack machine could not make up such statements as those tossed off by a Dunn or a Van Jones. There seems to be neither a moral compass nor even a casual knowledge of history in this administration. And now we have the avatars of the "new politics" claiming it's okay to praise Mao's political and philosophical insight and his supposed determination ("You fight your war, and I'll fight mine") because Lee Atwater supposedly once evoked Mao too.

Ms. Dunn should simply duck out of her D.C. suburb and ask any Tibetan or Chinese immigrant in his 70s and 80s what life was really like in Mao's China.

 

[greyfoxx39]

Ping

[Don Corleone]

The entire administration is cut from the same bolt of RED cloth.

[stop_fascism]

Any time a democrat speaks well of Mother Theresa, it should be presumed she is joking.

[jessduntno]

VDH - he’s the man...

[moovova]

“50 million to 70 million”?

Mere child’s play compared to what Anita and her crowd want to do to America. They’re not just trying to re-make America in their own image...they want to set some new records I bet.

Stop’em before it’s too late...

[Yossarian]

There seems to be neither a moral compass nor even a casual knowledge of history in this administration.

The estimable Mr. Hanson grants Obama too much slack: Zero & crew certainly have a moral compass and knowledge of history - they just make a conscious decision to travel south.

[aimhigh]

Mao killed more people than any other single mass killer in the history of civilization.

But he only killed the Christians and the little people, so it's OK. /sarc/

[DogBarkTree]

I dont think this is quite fair. After all Mao killed upwards to 70 million of his own people while Obama’s friend and adviser, William Ayers indicated that only 25 million hard core capitalists “would need to be eliminated”.

[mowowie]

I wonder if she has a Mao poster in her bedroom.

[sweetiepiezer]

bttt

[freekitty]

We don’t even really know who Obama is.

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

No Hanson is correct. This administrations membership lacks intellect, a knowledge of history etc. People often confuse cunning and glibness as intelligence, they are not the same.”The Divine One” has cunning and glibness in abundance.

[Oratam]

I had a professor in college (in the late ‘80s) who could not contain her enthusiasm for this mass murderer. She never failed to refer to him as Chairman Mao. She gushed about how young Chinese students flashed their “Little Red Books” in the air when she was traveling (studying?) there in the ‘70s.

[kralcmot]

well lets keep this in perspective

there have been (according to a recent accounting)

over a BILLION abortions performed in the last 50 years or so...that’s about 1000 millions

so what’s 70 million in comparison?

just about 7%

so Mao was really a moderate

[PGalt]

HOORAY VDH!

[lonestar]

We don’t even really know who Obama is.

You haven't read Bill Ayers book, "Dreams of my Father"...or that other one, whatever it's called! LOL!

[Palladin]

Halloween would be an appropriate time for this witch Dunn to fly off on her broomstick.

[The Comedian]

[Quix]

Seems like the

‘elites’

using the word loosely

have been breeding

terminal levels of suicidal treason for a long time.

They have this delusional notion that they can hold a blast furnace in their laps and not become crispy critters.

They’ll discover otherwise in due course.

After a LOT more bloodshed.