WASHINGTON — Well, that did not take long! Just weeks
after initiating a war of words with Fox News and being exposed
as an admirer of Chairman Mao, Anita Dunn, the White House
Communications Director, is stepping down. I
intimated as much a couple of weeks back, when I lumped her in
with two other Obama Administration zanies who were
forced to resign: environmental czar Van Jones and National
Endowment for the Arts spokesman Yosi Sergant.
My point was that recent Democratic administrations always
welcome to Washington a fleet of eccentrics that are not to be
believed. Both the Carter and the Clinton administrations were
abundant with such characters, a woman who talked to monuments
late at night, a surgeon general who propounded the salubrious
benefits of masturbation publicly — by which I mean speaking of
it in public, not actually performing in public. Those are just
two of the many bizarre figures that come to mind. Now we have
the Obama Administration, and I have prophesied that its zanies
will outnumber those from both previous menageries
combined.
The question for the moment is which indiscretion weighed
most heavily against Dunn’s tenure, the war with Fox or the
praise of Mao? During her assaults on Fox she denounced the
cable-news network as “a wing of the Republican Party,” and
“opinion journalism masquerading as news.” In an extended shriek
she said last month, “The reality of it is that Fox News often
operates almost as either the research arm or the communications
arm of the Republican Party.” Is that sulfur I smell?
Actually, I doubt it was her war on Fox that caused the
White House Communications Director to bail. After all she is not
the only White House operative to assail Fox. There have been
others. Chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has claimed that Fox is not a
“legitimate news organization.” White House senior advisor David
Axelrod has said that Fox is “not really a news organization.”
The President himself has gotten in on the act.
My guess is that Dunn’s expressed admiration for Mao is the
cause of her departure. For this revelation I suppose we have to
thank Fox’s Glenn Beck. He aired a tape of Dunn notifying an
audience of students at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School near
Washington that this cuddly little butterball of a tyrant — who
oversaw the murder of some 70 million people — is one of her
“favorite philosophers.” The other one, she said, is Mother
Teresa, who killed no one so far as we know. Dunn adduced both as
moral exemplars for the assembled youths. Her point was something
about setting out to do things you really want to do regardless
of criticism. If I followed her, she saw both Mao and Mother
Teresa as variations on the old Sinatra standard “My Way.” In
moral and practical terms, Dunn’s advice to the students was
confused.
What is more she stretched the truth when asked to defend
her speech. On CNN she attempted to explain that when she spoke
of Mao as one of her “favorite political philosophers” she was
speaking ironically. The phrase was, she claimed, “intended as
irony, but clearly the effort fell flat — at least with a
certain Fox commentator whose sense of irony may be missing.” Ah,
Dunn’s war with Fox continues.
Yet by now many have viewed the tape that Beck aired and I
doubt they perceived any irony. Was she being ironic about Mother
Teresa too — if so, why? To be blunt, Dunn’s explanation is a
lie. She is one of those ritualistic liberals who specialize in
putting people on, in disturbing the peace. Disturbing the peace
is a timeless liberal value, but sometimes the liberal
misdemeanant goes too far. You cannot have a White House
Communications Director advocating Mao as a role model for
America’s youth. Thus she is going, going, gone. I cannot wait
for the next White House zany.
