One of the most hopeful things about the Obama administration is a renewed commitment to the arts, and particularly renewed support for the National Endowment for the Arts. It is all the more imperative, then, that the White House not take its personnel cues for the NEA from screaming right-wing cable TV idiots like Glenn Beck. Apparently Beck has brought about the demotion of NEA communications director Yosi Sergant — Darcy has the story.
Sergant tried to, you know, communicate about, and organize government support for, the arts. In other words, his job.
For Glenn Beck, this sort of thing is reminiscent of Nazi Germany. In fact, it seems that for Beck, government taking any kind of initiative on any public policy question is akin to totalitarianism.
Nazi totalitarianism, for anyone out there dimwitted enough to swallow Beck’s line, resulted in millions of Jews all across Europe being systematically hounded and stripped of their civil and political rights and property, herded into ghettos and then concentration camps to be worked and gassed to death.
To suggest that brainstorming about government arts initiatives via conference call is like Nazism — this is an appalling affront to the mass of humanity wiped out in the Holocaust and every person victimized in innumerable ways by Hitler’s regime.
That I even needed to write the above paragraph is a sad, scary commentary on the state of the “conservative” movement in this country, and the creeping mainstream influence of the lunatic fringe right.
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You think Glenn Beck is the devil. Fine, but that does not change the facts of the emerging NEA scandal.
We know for a fact Mr. Sargent lied to the press when he denied sending e-mail invitations to the conference call. It has since been established he sent the invitations from his NEA email address.
We know from transcripts Michael Skolnick introduced the call as an initiative of the White House and the NEA, saying he hoped it would lead to opportunities to “push the president and push his administration.”
Bufy Wicks, Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, then proceeded to thank participants for their help on the presidential campaign, presupposing all call participants were Obama partisans. She then informed the participants the administration would be coming to them with specific “asks.” Bear in mind, sixteen organizations on the call were recent recipients of NEA grants.
Mr. Sargent identified “health care, environment, education and community renewal” as the four volunteer areas they would like to see artists address. Within 2 days of the call all 21 organizations represented on the call endorsed Obama’s health care plan (again, 16 of which were recipients of recent NEA grants). The one thing they don’t discuss very much is art. Full transcript here:
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/pcourrielche/2009/09/21/full-nea-conference-call-transcript-and-audio/
Since the call came to light, Mr. Sargent has been mysteriously “re-assigned.” When asked about the call by ABC NEWS, Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington called it “disturbing,” explaining: “It's not what the NEA was created for, it's not supposed to be helping the president's agenda; that's not the point."
Now imagine if Mr. Sargent were a Republican in the previous administration. Would your reaction be so forgiving then?
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/09/after-inappropriate-nea-conference-call-white-house-pushes-new-guidelines.html
from the transcript: "…getting kids to go out and donate blood or adopting an alley way or identifying some walls in your neighborhood that have been stricken with graffiti that need a mural…."
Wow, scandalous! A short leap from that to plotting the extermination of the Jews.
You want to inveigh against the NEA, go ahead – it's a long right-wing tradition. But please acknowledge that Glenn Beck's rhetoric is of a different order – a vile slur against Sargent and hugely disrespectful toward the victims of actual totalitarianism.
PS – I don't think Glenn Beck is the devil. I believe he's an historical illiterate and thug, as I said in the title of my post.
PPS – via Anonymous Liberal:
"What's ironic (though not at all surprising) is that the very kind of allegation that is being leveled here was repeatedly proven to have occurred during the Bush administration, and in far more significant contexts. Monica Goodling was hiring and firing prosecutors, both U.S. Attorneys and DOJ line prosecutors, based on political criteria. Lurita Doan used the General Services Administration to "help" GOP candidates for office (and was eventually forced to resign). There were many other such examples, and the reaction to all of them by the Andrew Breitbarts of the world was a collective yawn."