While your points are well taken on her characterization of Mao and its troubling implications, even if she had quoted a lesser mass murderer, her message was the more damning aspect. She was saying, do not fight someone else’s war, do not go to someone else’s Calcutta. By implication, pay no attention to other people’s advice or heaven forbid morals. It is all about “you”.

We are a people, Americans in particular and humanity as a whole, that stand tall because we are standing on the shoulders of those that came before us. Much of what humanity has learned in the uncounted millennia is embedded in our morals and customs. Without a doubt some have been tossed appropriately away. We delude ourselves into thinking that we are new in doing this. Humanity has been slowly but continuously refining culture over millennia. That is what has gotten us where we are. So her call was for the students to cast off the past in toto. Step down from the shoulders of greatness to sit at her feet. That is the cry of this administration – look up to us, we know better.

As a nation, as a culture, we have learned that the utopian visions of Marx and Mao lead to the most horrific realities. The administration is now in the hands of those die hards that refuse to count the bodies because if they did they would have to admit they themselves are not a special breed, the vanguard, the enlightened. They are sideshow hucksters preying on the ill-educated and easily swayed. One curious line from a 2008 convention speech was, “The presidency is not a journey of self-discovery”. But that is exactly what this administration has become, it is “all about them”; their lives, their feelings, their beliefs. Reality and the lives, feelings and beliefs of others be damned. So Anita is calling the youth to follow in her footsteps. Step down from those shoulders and come discover what you would be without all that baggage… without all that wisdom.