Most people had never heard of the Obama White House’s Communications Director, Anita Dunn, until recently. She’s but the latest in a long line of Administration senior staffers and czars who are, shall we say, outside the mainstream of political thought (left-wing radicals). Who can forget the self-avowed communist who signed a petition blaming George Bush for planning the 9-11 attacks on our own nation, or the one who thought pets should be allowed to sue their owners, or the one with the far-left homosexual agenda being placed in charge of “safe schools” across the country.
So what did Anita Dunn say? Well, while addressing high school kids, she stated “two of my favorite philosophers are Mao Tse Tung and Mother Teresa. They are the two people that I turn to most.” Now I agree with her on the pro-life crusader Mother Teresa, who reportedly when then Senator Hilary Clinton wondered why America had never had a woman President was rebuked by the diminutive nun as follows: “You probably aborted her.”
But Mao Tse Tung? Most historians believe that he was responsible for more deaths than any mass murderer in history, including the likes of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot – approximately 50-70 million people. So when addressing impressionable high schoolers, one would hope that a responsible White House Communications Director would treat a mass murderer with contempt not reverence.
And now a copy of an Anita Dunn interview done at a conference in the Dominican Republic eight days before President Obama’s inauguration has surfaced. In the interview, Dunn in essence admits how the Obama campaign manipulated a compliant mainstream press by distributing propaganda videos rather than talking to reporters. “… very rarely did we communicate to the press anything that we didn’t absolutely control. It was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters… it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it…”
These admissions are quite revealing when you consider that the Obama Administration has all but declared war on the FOX News Network, the one network it doesn’t “control.” The role of the press has always been to challenge those in power (the Obama Administration, the Pelosi/Reid Congress) but the mainstream press has been asleep at the switch at best, and cheerleaders for those in power at worst.
The mainstream press does a great disservice to the American people by wittingly or unwittingly allowing itself to be controlled by any administration. It’s time for the press to once again play its traditional role of scrutinizing power, not worshiping it.