Monday, October 05, 2009

Hey NY Times, here's a story

I'd like to think that an organized attempt to politicize the NEA would be a story worth looking into.

So do you think that editor for the Times looking into blogger scoops will advance this one?

As many of you may know by now, my original article, entitled The National Endowment for the Art of Persuasion?, discussed a conference call organized by the White House and two federal agencies, those being the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) & the Corporation for National and Community Service (The Corporation). In the original article and subsequent series I presented an irrefutable fact – that the federal government encouraged a handpicked, pro-Obama arts group to address politically controversial issues under contentious national debate.

To prove that the government set out to politicize a federal agency, it would take more than one federal employee acting inappropriately during the August 10th conference call. However, once a second federal employee is found acting with the same intentions as the first, by definition collusion is a possibility.

I think it can be shown that Yosi Sergant did not act alone, but namely, Buffy Wicks and Nell Abernathy prescribed to the very same behavior.

On September 24th, the former Communications Director of the National Endowment for the Arts, Yosi Sergant, resigned from his position at the NEA. In a statement issued two days earlier, the Chairman of the NEA, Rocco Landesman, outlined a list of facts regarding the conference call, including that “the former NEA Director of Communications helped organize and participated in an August 10th conference call to introduce members of the arts community to United We Serve” and that he “acted unilaterally and without the approval or authorization of then-Acting Chairman Patrice Walker Powell.”

Let’s assume for a second that no one at the NEA knew of Sergant’s efforts, which is what it appears Mr. Landesman is saying. We can give the agency that caveat for now. However, the assumption of ignorance must stop there. Why? Because we know from several sources that the White House and The Corporation, a federal agency that promotes volunteerism, also played a role in initiating, organizing, and planning the meeting.

Read the whole thing......

No comments: