Tag Archives: Mao Zedong

Recently, conservative gabsters have been falling all over themselves in their ever higher spiraling rhetoric concerning White House Communications Director Anita Dunn for stating that Chinese Communist Mao Zedong was one of her “favorite political philosophers”, but what Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, et al, have not been telling you is that numerous conservatives have also approvingly cited Mao’s and other communists’ tactics too.

During one of his recent radio programs Rush Limbaugh said, “Can you think of anybody…who would run around and start praising Mao Zedong as a role model, as a philosopher to follow? Can you think of any…who would have previously cited Stalin or Lenin or Castro? This administration idolizes all these people. I’m not suggesting they’re mass-murderers; I’m saying they envy the total control, the tyrannical control that Mao Zedong had.”

Well, yes Rush, and Virginia, I can think of numerous conservatives who have also approvingly cited Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong. Who? Which conservatives would ever quote someone like Mao?

How about GOP Candidate, decorated war hero, Arizona Senator John McCain?

During last year’s presidential campaign McCain was answering blogger’s questions, and he was asked how he was doing. “You know, in the words of Chairman Mao, it’s always darkest before it’s totally black…(laughing)…” McCain answered.

So, a GOP presidential candidate quoted Mao?

Yep, but that’s not all, former Speaker of the House, current FOX News contributor, 2012 GOP presidential hopeful and Sean Hannity political hack, Newt Gingrich quoted Mao in a May 1995 Roll Call profile saying “War is politics with blood; politics is war without blood.” Mr. Speaker, that sounds like you’re a student of a communist Chinese leader, a man responsible for killing millions.

In a 1964 essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” Richard Hofstadter wrote that Stephen C. Shadegg, adviser to Sen. Barry Goldwater during his senatorial and presidential campaigns, approvingly cited Mao and quoted him, saying that he “followed the advice of Mao” while working for Goldwater and in his other campaign work. In its obituary of Shadegg, The New York Times described him as “a political campaign manager who was regarded as the alter ego of Senator Barry Goldwater in the Senator’s unsuccessful quest for the Presidency in 1964.” The Times also reported that Shadegg “for three years wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column that carried Senator Goldwater’s byline,” “served as Western regional director of the Goldwater forces” during his 1964 presidential campaign, and “was acknowledged as the person closest to the Senator in philosophy and as the craftsman of the Goldwater image as a staunch conservative.” (The New York Times, 5/24/90)

The man acknowledged as “the person closest to the Senator (Goldwater) in philosophy and as the craftsman of the Goldwater image as a staunch conservative” said he “followed the advice of Mao”? No one is more conservative than Barry Goldwater, and his closest advisor, even the man described as “the craftsman” of Goldwater’s “image as a staunch conservative” said he “followed the advice of Mao”? He didn’t just say he admired Mao. Nor, did he say that Mao was one of his “favorite political philosophers” but that he “followed the advice of Mao”.

But there are more conservatives who have quoted Mao.

A 1992 Seattle Times article reported that Republican strategist and former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed said in an “interview with The Phoenix Gazette” that “Mao Tse-Tung said politics is war without bloodshed. Clearly, there are some metaphors that sit nicely with politics.”

The former head of the Christian Coalition too? Say it ain’t so! Oh yes, it’s so, and Reed also admitted to admiring the tactics of the Viet Cong as well. In The Art of Political Warfare, John J. Pitney Jr., a contributing editor to the libertarian journal Reason, wrote that Reed explained the Christian Coalition’s strategy of sometimes backing ” ‘stealth candidates’ for local office who would downplay their affiliations in order to attract broader support” by saying, “It’s like guerrilla warfare. If you reveal your location, all it does is allow your opponent to improve his artillery bearings. It’s better to move quietly, with stealth, under cover of night. … It comes down to whether you want to be the British army in the Revolutionary War or the Viet Cong. History tells us which tactic was more effective.” So, Reed quotes not only Chairman Mao, but the VC too?

Hold on to your cigar with those formerly nicotine stained fingers Rush. In his December 26, 2008, Wall Street Journal column, GOP strategists and FOX contributor Karl (spelled with a K, like Soviet spelling of Kommunism) Rove wrote that he and President Bush “recommended volumes to each other (for example, he encouraged me to read a Mao biography; I suggested a book on Reconstruction’s unhappy end.) We discussed the books and wrote thank-you notes to some authors.”

Let me get this straight, former Republican President George W. Bush suggested a biography on Mao? Not a biography of George Washington, nor of Lincoln, but of Mao? Doubtless this book was chock full of not only Mao quotes, but Mao philosophical ideas as well; but I thought that no other administration?

So, Virginia, and Rush, Sean and Glenn, not only is there a Santa Claus, but yes, conservatives have also approvingly cited Mao’s and other communists’ tactics too.