De-Politicizing the Arts

Last month, I wrote about the White House's attempt to hijack the National Endowment for the Arts for political purposes. The post was prompted by Patrick Courrielche's article on Big Hollywood about a conference call "hosted by the NEA, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and United We Serve," designed to push artists into promoting President Obama's legislative agenda. As I showed, this would be illegal, inconsistent with NEA's statutory mission--not to mention a waste of tax dollars.

Despite minimal coverage in the mainstream media (Glenn Beck on FOX, the New York Post and, surprisingly, the Boston Globe, excepted), outrage by one Senator, plus the rightist blogosphere apparently got results. As Courrielche reported Tuesday, the NEA vanished from the second conference call. And on Thursday, NEA's communications director Yosi Sergant -- who lied when denying being behind the first call -- was "reassigned" to a different job.

Naturally, the loony left claims conspiracy. One blogger says Sergant was toppled because he's Jewish (liberal Jews--who knew?). The Puffington Host makes it seem "like . . . some kind of right-wing witch hunt led by Glenn Beck." (The SF Chronicle, WaPo and some Daily Kos diarists say much the same.) Each avoids the point that politicizing the NEA was illegal, as the White House implicitly acknowledged via its furious backpedaling.

Progressives bypass the merits of scandals reported on FOX or blogs -- especially when true. Aren't they the same bunch who brayed that everything Bush did was "illegal"? All of which further underscores the outrage of the silence of the NEA and the liberal media lambs.

(via The Corner)