Some people will undoubtedly shrug and say "so what?" But what if it had been a Hitler quote? I'm sure there must be a relevant pro-learning quote from Adolf Hitler somewhere. But people would be justifiably outraged if our government were to post it on a site designed for children. And yet to this day Mao still does not get the same well-deserved scorn that Hitler receives. Under Mao, some 35,226,000 Chinese were murdered and another 38,000,000 were allowed to die of starvation and disease.
The quote was removed after it went viral. Then it was replaced by a Lincoln quote. Finally, the "Quote of the Day" feature vanished entirely. Daren Briscoe, the acting press secretary for the Department of Education released a statement in which, no surprise, he manages to imply that it's really Bush's fault:
"The Kids' Zone website hosted by the National Center of Education Statistics earlier today featured a poorly chosen quote, intended to highlight the importance of teaching and learning, in the 'Quote of the Day' feature. This feature, which automatically generates one education-related quote per day from a database of quotes last updated in 2007, has been temporarily suspended pending a review of the database's contents."Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley also weighed in:
"The Department of Education should explain how a quote from Mao Zedong got on its Kids' Zone webpage as the promotional quote of the day. On the orders of Lenin, Stalin, and subsequent Soviet leaders, approximately 20 million people were killed, and an estimated 65 million people were killed by the Chinese Communist government, mostly under Mao Zedong. That makes him the most murderous dictator of the 20th century. As our society rightly does with Hitler, murderous tyrants like Stalin and Mao should be considered pariahs, their victims should be remembered, and their crimes should be taught to future generations so they never happen again."This is why it's important to stay vigilant and not let anonymous bureaucrats get away with something like this. It was either the result of somebody's gross ignorance or, worse, a deliberate attempt to make Maoism acceptable for American children. But hey, don't take my word for it. Here's one of Obama's good friends and former communications director, Anita Dunn, not just quoting Mao but calling him one of her two favorite "political philosophers."
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