The logic is faulty. Mao was a mass murderer. If a “community group” had submitted a ornament with an Andy Warhol print of Stalin, Hitler, etc. would the White House’s (or Charles’) explanation/excuse be the same … of course not. Just because the ornaments were submitted by “community groups” does absolve or provide some type of procedural immunity to those who decorated the tree. It’s at the at least offensive, particularly to those Chinese-Americans who escaped Mao’s revolutionary guard during the Great Leap Forward.