WH Aide Anita Dunn: 'Mao is One of My Two Favorite Philosophers'

Senior White House Aide Anita Dunn, who recently claimed FOX News was an arm of the Republican Party, was caught on video claiming that former Chinese Communist Party Leader Mao Zedong was one of her two favorite philosophers. The other? Mother Teresa.

As Digital Journalist Andrew Moran reported here on October 11th, Senior White House Communications Aide Anita Dunn made news last week in a statement criticizing FOX News as "an arm of the Republican Party." That statement by Ms. Dunn generated a great deal of criticism on many popular conservative-leaning blogs such as Michelle Malkin, Gateway Pundit, Power Line, the Jawa Report and Red State. Those conservative pundits have also been quick to point to public opinion polls, such as that by the PEW Research Center, that indicate a majority of the public believe the "mainstream" media has a liberal bias that favors President Obama, liberal Democrats and their policy agenda. MSNBC's Chris Matthews' famous "Thrill up my leg" statement was often cited. Now it has come to light, through a YouTube video a viewer sent FOX pundit Glenn Beck (embedded above), that during an address to high school students in D.C. this past June, Ms. Dunn cited former Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong as one of her two favorite philosophers, the other being Mother Theresa. That video is now going viral, and has made the news in major media outlets such as CNN and the New York Times after being broadcast on FOX's Glenn Beck Show. Ms. Dunn and the White House have been backtracking ever since. The White House claimed she was joking. Media Matters has also attempted to debunk conservative accusations of Maoist and Communist sympathies on the part of Ms. Dunn. In her own defense, Ms. Dunn told the Times' Caucus blog in an email that she was quoting former Republican stalwart and GOP Chairman Lee Atwater from a statement of his she read in 1998 and added, "I also cited Mother Teresa, and nobody's calling me a saint!" In response to those denials, conservatives have also been quick to point out that Ms. Dunn seemed quite serious in the speech captured on video, and that her citations of Chairman Mao dominated her speech. Conservatives have also begun linking Ms. Dunn's statement with those of Obama's former green jobs czar Van Jones, a self-avowed Communist and Marxist who resigned from his post on Sept. 6th. You can watch the video above and read the full text of Ms. Dunn's speech verbatim at FOX News. Mao Zedong, the father of the 1949 Communist Revolution in China, has been accused of murdering anywhere from 30-70 million Chinese citizens during his rule, which lasted from 1949 until his death in 1976. He is still considered a revered figure among the Communist Chinese. His iconic portrait remains ubiquitous in China, and dominates the gate to the Forbidden City in Tienanmen Square in Beijing. For the record, quotes by famous Communist leaders are not all that uncommon in the West. Vladimir Lenin's famous quote, "If you want to make an omelet, you have to be willing to break a few eggs," has become a colloquialism among pundits of all political stripes. Lenin, the founder of the Russian Communist Party, was referring to the violent and bloody upheaval of the 1917 Russian Revolution as a necessary evil in order to wipe away the vestiges of the Czarist rule and establish a Communist state in Russia.