Posted on 11/16/2009 5:16:17 PM PST by Kaslin
Officials: Anita Dunn may be leaving with her little red book, but her husband enters as the next White House counsel, bringing experience in suppressing dissent, assaulting the First Amendment and limiting speech.
Dunn, whose favorite philosophers include mass murderer Mao Zedong, was expected to leave after a short stint. She rose to fame as chief strategist for former Senate majority leader, now national health care guru, Tom Daschle. While serving as White House communications director, she was the commanding general of the administration "war" on Fox News.
Like her philosophical mentor, Mao, and her colleague, FCC diversity czar Mark Lloyd, she feels that dissent and discourse in a democracy are an annoying and unnecessary distraction to our great leap forward. Dunn admired Mao. Lloyd admires Hugo Chavez and his treatment of the Venezuelan media.
Dunn's husband, Bob Bauer, is a politically connected attorney who has gone from being general counsel of the 2008 Democratic presidential campaign to serving as general counsel of the Democratic National Committee. He is also the top lawyer at Organizing for America, the rechristened version of the president's campaign vehicle.
He replaces Greg Craig, who was ousted because of frustration among senior White House aides over his handling of the plans to close the prison at Guantanamo. Not many people know Bob Bauer, but defenders of democracy and free speech know of his antipathy toward political opposition and desire to suppress it.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
That is not surprising
Does anyone here really believe that Mao was a great philosopher? He once said something to the effect that "my bowels never moved more freely than during the Long March (Great Revolution). This may be true, but hardly worth repeating unless mass murderer Mao said it.
It is more likely, IMHO, that he was a personality cult philosopher, and not a true philosopher, right? Maybe he knew a lot about revolutionary warfare and politics, but philosophy?
As with all historical figures, his experiences affected him more deeply than others. I remember reading in one of his biographies that while the other wealthy students either snubbed him or offered him money for performing demeaning tasks, one wealthy student treated him with kindness. That student that treated him with kindness was spared the purges that exterminated the other members of the upper class.
He might not say something that makes any sense at all to us, but perhaps he wasn’t as good at profound statements as others, but he struggled, survived, and then succeeded to an astonishing degree. He as a brainless ruler, but he unified a country of (at the time) hundreds of millions of people, the most populous country in the world under his iron fist. No small accomplishment.
When he ran China, he didn’t have time for being intellectual. He only had time to get the country on its feet. When people compare Zero to Mao, they are making the mistake of assumming that Zero is as tough physically and as intelligent. Chinese politics isn’t about being everyone’s best friend.
I agree that Mao did not have time for being an intellectual. However, I do not think he was much of a philosopher, and that is my point. This woman said that Chairman Mao and Mother Teresa were her favorite philosophers. IMHO, neither are real philosophers in the classical sense.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.