Bruno
10-28-2009, 07:02 AM
Give me a break! Made Drudge this morning. And the Obama-worship continues...
h ttp://www.arts.gov/artworks/?p=13
continued
...My answer is pretty simple. There is a new president and a new NEA. The president first. 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.
Candidate Obama was the first in my memory to establish an arts advisory committee and the first to propose an arts policy. President Obama followed that up by making a surprising, out-of-left field choice to head the NEA, a signal I certainly took to mean he wasn’t interested in business-as-usual for the arts. Not long ago he even referenced the NEA when talking about the budget deficit issue. He said, in a speech at Georgetown University: “Let’s not kid ourselves and suggest that we can solve this problem by…cutting the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts.”
from the comments on the article:
Largebill says:
October 27, 2009 at 9:31 am
Not one dime should be stolen from tax payers and spent on the arts. If people want to fund the arts they can reach into their own pocket and fund the arts. Politicians reach into other people’s pockets and then act like they are personally being generous.
Have any of the politicians in DC actually read the Constitution? You cite Europe’s spending on the arts as a comparison to make it seem we are spending too little. Ridiculous. European history of funding the arts is a remnant of the days of monarchs. We were formed as a representative democracy not a monarchy. Beyond that government funding of art (or newspapers, etc) leads naturally to censorship.
Jerry Garcia says:
October 27, 2009 at 10:36 am
I’m sure you’re excited about the new job and all, but I’m going to take issue with this:
“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.”
What makes you think you can just make stuff up?
Lincoln never wrote a book. There have been many Presidents since Roosevelt to write their own books. Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. JFK accepted a Pulitzer Prize for Profiles in Courage.
h ttp://www.arts.gov/artworks/?p=13
continued
...My answer is pretty simple. There is a new president and a new NEA. The president first. 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.
Candidate Obama was the first in my memory to establish an arts advisory committee and the first to propose an arts policy. President Obama followed that up by making a surprising, out-of-left field choice to head the NEA, a signal I certainly took to mean he wasn’t interested in business-as-usual for the arts. Not long ago he even referenced the NEA when talking about the budget deficit issue. He said, in a speech at Georgetown University: “Let’s not kid ourselves and suggest that we can solve this problem by…cutting the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts.”
from the comments on the article:
Largebill says:
October 27, 2009 at 9:31 am
Not one dime should be stolen from tax payers and spent on the arts. If people want to fund the arts they can reach into their own pocket and fund the arts. Politicians reach into other people’s pockets and then act like they are personally being generous.
Have any of the politicians in DC actually read the Constitution? You cite Europe’s spending on the arts as a comparison to make it seem we are spending too little. Ridiculous. European history of funding the arts is a remnant of the days of monarchs. We were formed as a representative democracy not a monarchy. Beyond that government funding of art (or newspapers, etc) leads naturally to censorship.
Jerry Garcia says:
October 27, 2009 at 10:36 am
I’m sure you’re excited about the new job and all, but I’m going to take issue with this:
“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.”
What makes you think you can just make stuff up?
Lincoln never wrote a book. There have been many Presidents since Roosevelt to write their own books. Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. JFK accepted a Pulitzer Prize for Profiles in Courage.