Beck Calls For U.S. Chief Of Protocol To Be Fired Over Invented Controversies
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on January 25th, 2011 5:44 am by HL
Beck Calls For U.S. Chief Of Protocol To Be Fired Over Invented Controversies
Glenn Beck called for Ambassador Capricia Penavic Marshall, the current Chief of Protocol of the United States, to be fired, citing completely manufactured controversies: the “Mao Christmas tree ornament debacle” in 2009 and Chinese pianist Lang Lang’s rendition of an “anti-American song” at a White House state dinner in 2011.
Beck Calls For U.S. Chief Of Protocol To Be Fired Over “Mao Christmas Tree Ornament” And Lang Lang Performance
Beck On Chief Of Protocol: “I Think She Should Be Fired.” Beck said, “I want to know who’s the Chief of the Protocol office at the White House. And I know that’s a rhetorical question, because really you can’t answer me, and I know who it is already. It’s Capricia Penavic Marshall. She seems lovely. She’s not doing much protocol. No one in the White House has done much about protocol since Obama was elected.” After citing incidents that Beck himself acknowledged occurred before Marshall became Chief of Protocol, Beck continued:
Now Capricia wasn’t there for those. But she was there for the Mao Christmas tree ornament debacle, and now we’ve had this one. I love this one.
The Chinese pianist allowed to play an American – I’m sorry, an anti-American song at the lavish White House state dinner. Here he is. He’s introducing it.
And by the way, this is just the song that everybody in China knows. It was written during the Korean War. Very, very popular in China. I believe they call Americans in this one “jackals.”
So I don’t know what is happening at the White House Protocol Office. I don’t know if anybody over eight is actually running our country from the White House. But I think she should be fired.
I think everybody in the — I’d rather have just a pencil and a dog that pees on people’s legs at the protocol office, because at least we could explain those ones away. [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 01/24/11]
Mao Christmas Tree Ornament Actually Depicted A Well-Known Andy Warhol Painting
LA Times: “It Wasn’t Exactly Mao. It Was Andy Warhol’s ‘Mao.'” A 2009 article by Christopher Knight in the Los Angeles Times ridiculed disgraced conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart’s accusation that the White House inappropriately included an ornament depicting communist Chinese leader Mao on the White House Christmas tree:
On Tuesday, Andrew Breitbart’s a performance by Lang Lang, a Chinese pianist who has been a sensation in music circles. Mr. Lang played a duet with the American jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, then a haunting traditional Chinese melody called “My Motherland.”
In China, it turns out, “My Motherland” is better known as the theme from the film “Battle on Shangganling Mountain,” a 1956 Chinese classic about a Korean War battle in which a vastly outnumbered band of Chinese soldiers held off American and United Nations forces for 42 days.
If, in retrospect, “My Motherland” might seem to be a regrettable choice for a state dinner, it clearly was unintentional. Mr. Lang, an American-trained pianist who divides his time between the United States and China, is an artist who melds American and Chinese cultures. [The New York Times, 1/21/11]
Fallows: “A Barbed Message, Beneath All The Happy Talk? That Seems Far Fetched.” The Atlantic‘s James Fallows wrote in a blog post:
One other note: apparently a minor flap in the Chinese-nationalist blogosphere because the “Chinese song” that Lang Lang played after his duet with Herbie Hancock, as the only non-jazz element in the concert, is known in China from a famous Korean War-era movie about a battle between Chinese soldiers and UN/American troops. A barbed message, beneath all the happy talk? That seems far fetched. I think the New York Times explanation is more plausible: a perhaps inartful but not devious/ hostile choice of song. (As if “Over There” had been played as an American song for a visiting German dignitary — or if “Lili Marlene” were played in Germany. Or even “Yankee Doodle Dandy” during a US visit by the Queen.) By chance, my wife and I had talked with Lang Lang for quite a long while before his performance. Trained in Philadelphia, based mainly in New York, with as devoted an audience in the U.S. as anywhere, manifestly excited about the whole event and his chance to play with Hancock, he seems an unlikely vehicle for a slyly angry nationalist message, via a movie from his grandparents’ time. [James Fallows, The Atlantic, 1/23/11]
