The Flak Catchers Continue To Mao-Mao

Kathy Shaidle and Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit catches yet another Obama staffer approvingly quoting Mao:

Much has been made about White House Communications Director Anita Dunn’s description of the murderous dictator Mao Zedong as one of her “favorite political philosophers.”

Now comes word that another Obama insider has been quoting Mao approvingly. A video shot at a 2008 Union League Club meeting in New York shows “manufacturing czar” Ron Bloom telling his audience:

We know that the free market is nonsense. (…) We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun.

So who is Ron Bloom?

Click over to find out.

And while this story may play on Fox News, it might not elsewhere. It’s “all about containment”, Ben Smith writes at Politico:

The rationale of the White House offensive against Fox News has been a topic of much puzzlement lately. Is this just the White House lashing out? Are they trying to rally the base?

But I think Mike Allen and Josh Gerstein nail the real explanation in their story today: The White House is working to prevent stories born on Fox from crossing over into more widely-viewed media. Most Americans still haven’t heard of Van Jones, for instance; and the strategy is now all about containment:

And of course, many Obama boosters in the rest of the media are all too happy to play along. At NRO’s Media Blog, Guy Benson adds:

The administration seems to have moved on from its previous, cynical campaign to discredit Rush Limbaugh. Why bother hammering Rush from the ultimate bully pulpit when the rest of the lefty echo chamber is promulgating that meme quite nicely—reporting fabricated quotes as facts, and wondering aloud whether Limbaugh is a genuine bigot, or just plays one on the radio. (Shame on Michael Wilbon, of whom I’m usually an admirer).

Meanwhile, Fox News’ reporting has created a number of headaches for the president recently. His “green jobs” czar, Van Jones, was forced to resign after Fox revealed his communist ties, 9/11 trutherism, and other toxic alliances. Another official, “safe schools” czar Kevin Jennings, is also on the ropes. Fox correspondent Major Garrett dogged the White House with tough questions about its controversial “misinformation” snitch line and the mysterious unsoliticted political spam email scandal. These important queries each exposed inappropriate Obama policies, both of which were changed due to public pressure.

By reporting on these controversies—all deemed “distractions” of some sort by the White House — Fox committed the journalistic sin of complicating Obama’s domestic agenda, including health care reform, cap and trade, etc. Apprently, the news media’s unofficial mission statement of “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable” has become a quaint anachronism of a bygone era. At least when an ideologically enlightened administration is in power.