Bush Is Said to Seek More Money for Arts [$15 million to $20 million for NEA]

New York Times ^ | January 29, 2004 | ROBERT PEAR

[windchime]

You DO know how to hit the 1000th post. Congratulations!

[ohioWfan]

I'm not sure the truth matters to some of these people, windchime.

What I'd like to see is an acknowledgement from those who said that this proved that President Bush wasn't a MORAL leader because of this, that they were wrong.

It won't happen. It takes maturity to admit you were dead wrong...... and there wasn't a whole lot of that going on on this thread........

[windchime]

"What I'd like to see is an acknowledgement from those who said that this proved that President Bush wasn't a MORAL leader because of this, that they were wrong."


Acknowledgement is doubtful, but it surely would be nice!

[Kay Soze]

Rush Limbaugh-

Who Needs the NEA?

January 29, 2004


I'm getting a lot of calls on Bush's proposal to spend up to $20 million of taxpayer money on the NEA. This is something that outrages Bush's conservative, smaller-government base - especially when we have a projected budget deficit of $520 billion.



You can hear me analyze Roger Kimball's National Review Online column "Farewell Mapplethorpe, Hello Shakespeare - the NEA the W Way." Kimball is managing editor of the New Criterion and author of "Art's Prospect." He writes that the NEA's new chairman, poet and critic Dana Gioia, has transformed the Mapplethorpe-era organization "into a vibrant force for the preservation and transmission of artistic culture." Kimball gushes:

"People keep telling us — that is, professors and CNN commentators and Hollywood actors keep telling us — how very stupid President Bush is. Yet everywhere one looks he is supporting some of the most intelligent and dynamic people ever to occupy their cultural posts.... The left keeps screaming about how dim George Bush is, but in the meantime he's illuminated one area of public life after another with these immensely talented and articulate people."

Well, good, then they don't need to take money from other Americans! This reminds me of the argument over funding the Kansas City Symphony when I lived there. There were all these fund-raisers, and when people didn't open their wallets at them, the symphony demanded that the government force them to pony up the dough. I mean, nobody wanted the symphony, okay? Yet some people insisted the government fund the thing! I just don't understand this line of thinking. A lot of conservatives feel the same way, and they're none too happy with Bush these days.