Former Obama Czar Goes After Glenn Beck in New Book; Compares Attacks to Orwell's 'Two Minutes Hate

Cass Sunstein (nyu.edu)

President Barack Obama's former "regulatory czar" Cass Sunstein is going after one of his harshest critics, Glenn Beck, in a new book titled, "Simpler: The Future of Government." In it, he claims Beck became obsessed with him and compares his attacks on his record and views to "Two Minutes Hate" found in George Orwell's "1984."

For anyone who hasn't read Orwell's classic, "Two Minutes Hate" is a daily activity during which Party members in Oceania must watch video depicting the Party's enemies as they mindlessly express their hatred for them. See the video below:

Sunstein, a former law professor at Harvard and University of Chicago, claims that Beck "developed what appeared to be a kind of obsession with me." The so-called "obsession" began when he was nominated to take over the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in 2009. He earned the titled of "the most dangerous man in America" from Beck.

Mother Jones' Tim Murphy provides an excerpt from Sunstein's yet-to-be released book, in which he claims Beck's attacks resulted in death threats against him:

In Orwell's 1984, there is a brilliant, powerful, and frightening scene of the "Two Minutes Hate," in which party members must watch a film depicting national enemies. (As it happens, the leading enemy is named Goldstein.) At times, Beck's attacks on me, featuring my smiling face, were not entirely unlike those scenes. A new website was created, stopsunstein.com, filled with inflammatory quotations, some taken out of context to suggest that I endorsed views that I rejected and was merely describing.

I began to receive a lot of hate mail, including death threats, at my unlisted home address. One of them stated, "If I were you I would resign immediately. A well-paid individual, who is armed, knows where you live."

In the end, Sunstein made it through the confirmation process and got the go ahead from the Senate with a 57-40 vote. However, he ended up resigning in August of last year to become Harvard’s Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law and Director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy.