Glenn Beck continued his jihad against White House Communications Director Anita Dunn yesterday on his Fox News program, focusing his rage on remarks she made earlier this year at a D.C. – area high-school graduation ceremony. Here’s what he played of her remarks:
"[T]wo of my favorite political philosophers, Mao Tse-Tung and Mother Teresa, not often coupled with each other, but the two people that I turn to most …"Not content to do it once, he ran the same snippet again, exactly like that. Twice he described Dunn as saying that Mao was one of the philosophers "she turns to most". Except, of course, that wasn’t what she said. You have to hear the rest of the sentence after Beck clips it off. Here’s the full original quote, which you can see at the original full video:
"The third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Tse-tung and Mother Theresa – not often coupled with each other, but the two people I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point which is ‘you’re going to make choices; you’re going to challenge; you’re going to say why not; you’re going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before."In other words, she found their words handy to make a universal and fairly banal point about being true to one’s self. That’s all. No Mao-worship. You also can hear laughter from the audience when Dunn couples Mao and Mother Teresa, so at least it’s clear that some in the audience got the joke. Glenn Beck didn’t…
I can’t resist to temptation to refute the Fox guys like Glenn Beck either. Here, David Neiwert of Crooks and Liars shows us some of Beck’s creative editing. But refuting what they say doesn’t really matter. The people who watch don’t read Crooks and Liars or much else. And that’s hardly the point. No one would watch Glenn Beck unless they were looking for something to get their anti-whatever juices flowing. But it’s nice to know that the White House Communications Director isn’t a Maoist. And be true to yourself isn’t a bad choice for a high school graduation message. But Beck’s original commentary was a bit more toxic:
… the most important political philosopher for her is Mao Zedong — oh, and Mother Teresa. The guy responsible for more deaths than any other 20th-century leader is her favorite philosopher? How can that man be your favorite anything? He killed 70 million people. That would be like me saying to you, "Oh, you know who my favorite political philosopher is? Adolf Hitler. Have you read Mein Kampf? Just fight your fight, like Hitler did." It’s insanity! This is her hero’s work! Seventy million dead!She thinks of this man’s work all the time? That was a quote. Could you please put the gulags back up here? Could you please put the images back up here of China, please, while I remind you the gulags – not that picture. Give me the picture of the Chinese and the brutality, the gulags, the re-education camps. And he’s your favorite?
America, how many radicals is it going to take? How many radicals surrounding our president will it take before you understand that when the president says he wants to transform the country, well, he wants to transform it, all right. Progressives don’t care what you think. They will drag you to reform if they have to. But we’re not just talking about progressives now, we’re talking about revolutionaries that idolize Mao.
For what it’s worth, Anita Dunn doesn’t look like much of a revolutionary that idolizes Mao to me…
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