Megan McCardle continues to be amazed by the antics of the man she had supported last year on the campaign trail , and his staffers:
“I thought that this must be some kind of grotesque conservative exaggeration, but no, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn really did tell a graduating high school class to emulate Mao Tse-Tung’s bold and imaginative attitude during his takeover of China. Most of us look at the tens of millions who died and maybe think twice about trying to imitate the late Chairman, but hey, think different!”
Glenn Reynolds adds, “The White House has long since outrun conservatives’ powers of exaggeration.”
Muggeridge’s Law was made for this gang.
Incidentally, a 1943 film that’s out on DVD this week would play remarkably well when it’s movie night at the current White House.
(Just make sure to buy the correct region code this time, fellas.)
I stumbled across the last ten or fifteen minutes of “Mission to Moscow” on TBS a while back. I had never heard of it until then, and branded into mememory was a scene, the gist of which was -
(both Americans speaking!)
Man #1: “But it just seems strange that so many of Comrade Stalin’s closest allies were acccused of treason, and some of them were even treated somewhat harshly (t’shah!)…. Surely they could not have all been traitors.”
Man #2: “Actually, it turns out, they all were guilty! Can ya believe it??”
Man #1: “Wow. Gosh. OK then.”
There’s still a mark on the floor where my jaw slammed into it.
(Correction: I meant Turner Classic Movies, obviously, not TBS.)
I will give Megan credit for openly voicing her buyer’s remorse. Other, more high-profile nominal Republican supporters of Obama, such as David Brooks, Kathleen Parker or Christopher Buckley are either still hanging in there or trying to act as those their support of Obama a year ago never happened (and as if easy access to Internet archives of their writings doesn’t exist).