Read his column here.
The call [NEA conference call to the “arts community”] also was the beginning of a small scandal that illuminates
something gargantuan — the Obama administration’s incontinent lust to
politicize everything.The NEA is the nation’s largest single source of financial support
for the arts, and its grants often prompt supplemental private
donations. He who pays the piper does indeed call the tune, and in the
four months before the conference call, 16 of the participating
organizations received a total of nearly $2 million from the NEA. Two
days after the call, the 16 and five other organizations issued a plea
for the president’s health care plan.The automobile industry and much of the financial sector
have been broken to the saddle of the state. Ninety percent of new
mortgages and 80 percent of student loans — the average family’s two
most important financial transactions — are financed or guaranteed by
the federal government. Now the Obama administration is tightening the
cinch on subsidized artists, conscripting them into the crusade to
further politicize the 17 percent of the economy that is health care….That assumption is right as rain regarding another commodity —
lobbyists. Which is what the portion of the “arts community,” including
the “just plain cool people,” who participated in the conference call
has become. But, then, lobbying is, Lord knows, “expressive behavior,”
and therefore it is … art.
