American Journalism Goes Dark—Voluntarily

Journalism died in America when Barack Hussein Obama was running for President.

The dinosaur media gleefully surrendered to the cult of personality—standard for leftist politics—and since then normally skeptical journalists have turned into nothing less than a collective Pravda for the Obama White House.

It’s not hard to fathom the reasons for this herd-like behavior. Elite journalists and editors recognize in Obama a kindred spirit, a hard left, big government ideologue who is adept at mouthing—endlessly, tediously and vacuously—all the politically correct rhetoric.

Questions of experience, competence, and Obama’s deeply troubling political, religious and social connections were swept aside as “mere distractions.”

In fact, Obama’s numerous unsavory friends and supporters was and is at the heart of the Obama presidency.

As the American public is now discovering.

Well, only if you watch Fox News or read the Internet.

Dunn Does Mao

White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, speaking at the pricey and exclusive St. Andrews Episcopal high school graduation, praised Mao Tse-Tung and Mother Theresa as two of her “favorite political philosophers.”

Was she joking, as she now claims?

Of course not.

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As you can see, there is not a hint of irony in her delivery—there is a strong hint of psychotropic medication as Dunn reflexively licks her lips during the speech; she’s got a case of dry mouth that can only be induced by drugs—and the titters when she mentions Mother Theresa and mass murderer Mao Tse-Tung in the same breath is the sound of nervous laughter from audience members who are, no doubt thinking: “Did she really say what I thought she said?”

You would think that the White House communications director’s praise of Mao—responsible for the death of about 50 million people—would be big news.

You would be wrong.

Only Glenn Beck and Fox News are carrying this story.

It’s a bit like, well, Mao’s China or the Soviet Union, where the media is a wholly owned subsidiary of the government.

More Mao Maoing

Well, now we have another member of the White House, Manufacturing Czar Ron Bloom, attacking the free market, and praising, yup, Mao Tse-Tung.

Roll the videotape:

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H/T: Weasel Zippers

Hey, is it any wonder that President Obama refused to meet with that good man, the Dalai Lama?

My Cute Communist Spy

Years ago, researching a film script, the studio sent me the screenwriter, plus director, producer, and co-producer to China.

The Communist government assigned us several translators—meaning spies—to keep an eye on us.

My Spy, a genial, delicate and extremely cute young woman who was crazy about Hollywood movies, and totally knocked out to discover that she was in the company of a real live Jew—“Can you not just bless the pork and make it the kosher you require?”—was kind enough to warn me that my hotel room was bugged, and that her job was to make sure that I only saw the ”best side of The People’s Republic of China.”

My spy, I soon discovered, though she was working for the Communist Party, was deeply unhappy about her life and her role as a government drone.

One afternoon, as she and I strolled along The Great Wall of China—which really is great—away from the other government minders, she told me that her father, a university professor, was denounced as a counter-revolutionary during the so-called Great Leap Forward.

“What happened?” I asked.

“He was shamed and hung himself from the tree in our courtyard.”

And your mother?”

“She was sent for re-education, but I never heard from her again.”

“So you think she died?”

“Murdered. Mao killed millions.”

This was years ago and the extent of Mao’s machinery of death was not yet known in the West.

“And now you’re a member of the Communist Party.”

My Spy shrugged and smiled sadly.

“I survive.”

Praise of Mao Tse-Tung by western elite liberals might be viewed as trendy intellectual slumming—like Che t-shirts—by members of the dinosaur media, not worthy of notice or comment, but for me, Mao Tse-Tung conjures the image of a father dangling by the neck, a mother swallowed by Mao’s vast gulag, and My Spy smiling through her tears.

Copyright © Robert J. Avrech