Uh-oh. Just when we were all forgetting the name Van Jones , it looks like the Obama administration might have another PR problem on its hands. Reason ’s Nick Gillespie points to this video that Glenn Beck uncovered (yeah, yeah-don’t shoot the messenger) featuring White House interim communications director Anita Dunn calling Mao Zedong one of her “favorite political philosophers.” She cites the Communist dictator to “make a simple point … you fight your own war. You lay out your own paths.”
Dunn has worked for Obama since early 2008, and the video is from June 5, so this isn’t some archival footage from decades ago that’s being used now to make Obama look bad. ( Media Matters says this was a speech to high school graduates.) It’s quite simply stupidity or cluelessness on Dunn’s part. She could have cited an untold number of sources for her banal words of wisdom-essentially, think for yourself and make your own way-and yet she drew her inspiration from the man who’s responsible for the deaths of 40 million to 70 million people.
