Anita Dunn responds:

In an e-mail message, Ms. Dunn said, “My source for the Mao quote was actually the late Lee Atwater, either in an article or bio I read after the 1988 election. Now that I’ve revealed this I hope I don’t get Keith Olbermann angry with me. Let it be noted that I also quoted Mother Teresa, but no one is accusing me of being a saint!”

The speech she gave was a high school commencement address. Ms. Dunn says that the line about Mao and Mother Teresa was intended to be ironic – neither are political philosophers – and that she used it simply to illustrate a larger point about the importance of challenging the conventional wisdom.