Inside Joke or Communist Yoke?

Inside Joke or Communist Yoke

White House Communications Director Anita Dunn raised a few eyebrows last week when she, while addressing a group of high school students, identified Mother Teresa and Mao Zedong as the two people she looked to most in life and as her inspirations to challenge the status quo. Dunn went on to urge her audience accordingly, “It is about your choices and your path. You fight your own war. You lay out your own path. You figure out what’s right for you. You don’t let external definitions define how good you are internally.” Dunn praised Mao for his intrepid takeover of China, neglecting to mention the 70 million casualties but nonetheless admiring his indomitable spirit. This shows President Obama, the first president to spurn a meeting with the Dalai Lama, in a new light—he was fighting his own war and not letting the external tradition of his predecessors influence him. When challenged on her pro-communist and potentially anarchical rhetoric, Dunn claimed to have been joking. It is indeed difficult to see the humor, but this does mean Dunn was not taking her address to impressionable high school students seriously and she may regard Mother Teresa a joke as well.
Before everyone’s sides stopped hurting, the administration again came under fire, this time with manufacturing czar Ron Bloom taking the spotlight. A video of the somber union man addressing his somber comrades at the annual Union League Club meeting in which Bloom states, “We know that the free-market is nonsense” and, “We agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun” has resurfaced in conjunction with Dunn’s recent comments. Though democrats may have had a good laugh about the peace prize, they now have a serious problem. It seems that the communications and manufacturing heads of staff have been caught red handed pitching their tents in Mao’s camp, but the Democratic congressmen and women who were cited earlier this Fall praising Fidel Castro and his regime missed the memo. So far they have all maintained some semblance of unity in their attempts to over-regulate the market; one can only hope their continued political power doesn’t come at gunpoint, as Mao and Castro’s did.
Anita Dunn maintains that calling Mao and Mother Teresa her “favorite political philosophers” was a bit of ironic humor. As a one-time stand-up comedian, this should be totally unacceptable for Dunn, who has now established that she is not only bad at humor, but also bad at communicating. Though he may not have the same pretext of mirth, Bloom’s communicative skills must also be lacking, for the Democrats clearly don’t all agree. Congresswoman Diane Watson, who lauded Castro as, “one of the brightest leaders I have ever met," displayed the same narrow scope as Dunn. Though they both rub shoulders with the major political figures of today, and have all of western political tradition to look back upon, Watson and Dunn are satisfied to idolize Mao and Castro as the best examples of initiative and administration.