Posted on 10/27/2009 12:33:25 PM PDT by OldDeckHand
Rocco Landesman is President Obama's handpicked chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. Last week he gave the keynote address to the 2009 Grantmakers in the Arts Conference. Those of us concerned about the politicization of life and art in the Age of Obama will not be consoled by a reading of Landesman's speech. The speech bears examination in its entirety, but Landesman's tribute to Obama is especially worth a look:
This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln. If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar. That has to be good for American artists.
Landesman compares Obama favorably with Julius Caesar as "a powerful writer." Landesman is not referring to Obama's skills as a writer, but rather to the power he holds by virtue of his office. Some might think that the literary comparison sells Obama short. Caesar was something of a self-promoter and propagandist in his writing.
Yet Landesman knows Obama is like Caesar, somehow -- a friend asks, is it in the transformation of a republic into an empire with a divine ruler? Perhaps if Landesman had his wits about him, he would note instead that Obama is the most powerful speaker since the other JC.
(Excerpt) Read more at powerlineblog.com ...
This must be on the list of things to address in 2011's new Republican House of Representatives.
Sept 29th article in Wsh Times:
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES
National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman and the White House finally responded to a controversial effort by political appointees of both the White House and the NEA to leverage government funding of the arts into cultural support for the administrations legislative agenda.
This is the short version of the Obama administrations position: Nothing bad happened. The rogue employee who didnt do anything bad has been relieved of his duties (and has now resigned). In an effort to make sure that the same nothing bad never happens again, the administration has distributed a memo and provided some new training on how not to do nothing bad.
The facts are simple and public. During the transition, President Obamas top arts adviser made it clear that his ambition was for the arts to become an integral part of the West Wing. After the inauguration, meetings of artists and political activists at the White House explicitly discussed how to keep the arts community in campaign mode to back Mr. Obamas legislative agenda. An NEA grants official, Mario Garcia Durham, was at one such meeting for which the attendee list is public.
As those meetings occurred, Yosi Sergant, a key cog in the Obama campaigns outreach to artists, was transferred from a position at the White House to a position as the communications director of the NEA. When the grant spigots opened at the NEA, more than $2 million went directly into the coffers of arts organizations (and their members) attending these meetings and publicly backing elements of the administration agenda.
Does that prove laws have been broken? Of course not. The worst appearances can be completely innocent. However, the administrations assertions that Mr. Sergant acted alone (unilaterally and without ... approval or authorization in Mr. Landesmans words) and that the administrations efforts were completely unrelated to grant-making are at odds with the facts. The public deserves more than bland reassurances.
Cheap shot at Teddy Roosevelt, and I guess this guy hasn’t heard about Bill Ayers.
It was already heavily politicized.
Most of us can’t see any difference.
This character is clueless, absolutely clueless. As NRO points out, the Teddy Roosevelt's books were a pretty good - far better than most, Eisenhower's was excellent and Grant's is a must-read for virtually every student of the Civil War Era. It's easily the best War-General autobiography that I have ever read, and I have read most of them.
And, here's the other thing that the aforementioned books have going for them that Obama's don't - they're factual. There are countless inaccuracies, embellishments and downright lies in both of Obama's book. It's undeniable.
You know who I’d really like to see over at the NEA? Orson Scott Card. I don’t think he’d be willing to take either the pay cut or the move to DC, though.
I couldn't solve the puzzle. What is the other JC? J. C. Watts?
Johnny Carson.
It’s not adding up. This is why I hate English Lit. If someone knows English really well you’d think they could communicate. Maybe the other JC means the other Julius Ceaser: powerful socialist speaker Hitler
I was kidding about Carson, I thought you were too. The author is referring to Jesus. Sorry for the confusion.
Ok, that sort of adds up. I had thought of that also but it didn’t register.
I think they didn’t want to write it out and possibly offend anyone.
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