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In the wake of last month’s dustup over the NEA’s attempts to officially involve artists in the positive propagandizing of the President’s legislative agenda, you’d think that agency’s leadership would be especially careful to avoid the appearance of any gratuitous promotion of Obama or his policies. So I’m guessing that chairman Rocco Landesman’s specialty is not music, or perhaps he is writer seeking an equivalent to the graphic work of Mapplethorpe, since the tone deaf slobbering tribute he gave Mr. Obama during his keynote speech to the 2009 Grantmakers in the Arts conference amounts to a public fellating:
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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.
Now both Scott Johnson and John Miller point out that Landesman is obviously referring to power as, well, literal power as opposed to as a compelling talent. To quote Miller:
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What an absurd statement by NEA chief Rocco Landesman. He doesn't mean that Obama is a powerful writer in the sense that he is a compelling writer; he means that he is a writer who wields a lot of political power. This is not necessarily a distinguished category of authorship: It includes the likes of Lenin and Hitler. (It also includes good men, such as Churchill.) The most powerful since Caesar? Egad.
Johnson also notes the absurdity of Landesman’s declaration:
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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.
It never ceases to amaze me at how all of these educated people always mangle historical references, like Obama, or seem to lack any sense of scale or historical context. I mean, surely there have been other talented writers who also enjoyed great power in the intervening years between Caesar and Obama; Churchill, Wilson, or Dante Alighieri perhaps? And is it even a necessary prerequisite? As Beran points out, the artistry of statesmen is in their public performances as opposed to their literary exposition, with but a few exceptions. He also points out this curiosity:
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Mr. Landesman seems to think that the possession by a leader of an artistic sensibility is necessarily good for the arts. As proved, I suppose, by Nero and Hitler. Qualis artifex pereo!
What I really want to know is, in which famous Roman’s mold is he cast? Cicero, as he’s been hailed by many thus far, or Caesar, as Landesman asserts. Given his demonstrated lack of leadership on Obamacare and dithering over the question of reinforcements for Afghanistan, I’d more likely cast him as Nero, with perhaps a golf club instead of a fiddle…
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October 28th, 2009 - 16:21
Ah, ye of less than Nero artistic awareness who wears his Duuuuuh-meme like a soiled paper hat, you don’t read books, you watch Fux Nutworks on your dumb-box.
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October 28th, 2009 - 18:45
Awwwww…Does it huwt your widdle feewings to have the Pwesident you wuv so much be widiculed for what his swobbewing cult membews say in the midst of theiw waptuwe..?
Try and get over it, ok?
Because this kind of comedy can’t be made up as easy as the kiil-aid drinkers provide it…
Obama chipped, the economy dipped. Obama drove, while housing sales dove. Obama putted, while health care sputtered.
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October 29th, 2009 - 00:07
I’ll tell you what hurts, it’s when we take Danny’s boat out. Yeah, 48-foot of, how do you describe a really, really hot-hot fuckin’ whore who always finishes the crisis she starts? The thor-how-could-you!!!!!
It wasn’t named the SS Darleen, nor the SS Carin, let’s be clear. I call Danny’s whore-floater the Ocean Buzzard. It’s not the real name, but it rhymes, and we all live on our paradoxes.
When you’re floating high through the Boca inlet like Jacques Cousteau and you’re witness to so many conservative r-wingereds on the breakers, on the bridges, all having ridden bikes with poles tied to the backs and buckets across their handle bars, and yes, they wave and sing across the water, “Hi, millionaire, in your million dollar boat!.”
Why do I so often, with all my charm, lean across the bow and call out “hey, you, trapped in your victim world just like a cultured pearl, don’t you know you were born of coal, born to be swallowed whole?”
They look so small from high above – from the captain’s mast! – as if the they’re porcelains in a gift shop.
Human extras! If they’re all a lie, then why?
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October 29th, 2009 - 00:22
Sounds like a good time was had by all. But, how do you know that those folks fishing are all wingered-wingnutz-wingin’-it? Just curious…
Do they wear a scarlet “R”? Or is it a “W”…
Ah the Boca inlet; blue water, warm breezes, and occasionally exceptional “scenery”…
You are fortunate indeed.
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October 29th, 2009 - 01:09
Aww, weetle doggie, God say jump. A Boooosh bone, mmm, Booosh, mmm, white bone, like a doughnut!
On a bridge, on your hands and knees, pray for a bump!
Trickle all the way down.
Hahahahaha!
Line ‘em up.
How would’a he known about borrowing money?
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October 29th, 2009 - 05:36
Some pretty edgy and sbstract stuff. You know though, being a Floridian, especially a well heeled one, you ought to avoid the whoe *bump* reference; folks may wonder about the impetus of your abstractions…
And, God say jump? For a white Booooosh! doughnut bone?
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October 28th, 2009 - 17:16
I mean, surely there have been other talented writers who also enjoyed great power in the intervening years between Caesar and Obama; Churchill, Wilson, or Dante Alighieri perhaps?
Lincoln, Jefferson, and Grant come to mind on this side of the pond.
I’d more likely cast him as Nero
Elagabalus.
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October 28th, 2009 - 18:46
You’re right SBP, that’s probably a better characterization…
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October 28th, 2009 - 17:18
thor, there is something seriously wrong with you. Quit wasting oxygen, and going all in on stupid. Take one for the team.
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October 28th, 2009 - 17:42
If Obama is like Caesar (I presume he means Julius…) I’d recommend that he stay out of the Senate on the Ides of March. Harry Reid and Company may be ready to knife him in the back by then.
OTOH, Pelosi and the Dems in the House aren’t going to be much more in a forgiving mood by the time the Ides of March rolls around.
But the political knifing will already be occurring by then, so any actual physical stuff is ephemeral, in the greater scheme of things, methinks.
Heh.
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October 28th, 2009 - 18:47
I think Evan Bayh shanked him today on health care. Wait till the climate change/cap-n-trade farce start…during the coldest winter in a decade…
Stock up on popcorn.
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October 28th, 2009 - 19:06
He crossed the rubes he conned.
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October 29th, 2009 - 00:45
When mahogany wood, I wouldn’t. Door’s ajar…
I wouldn’t live off, even under pressure, a lack of courage.
If courage was a pissed-off tragedian, would truth be floored?
Exalted!
Little Bones! Here, Little Bones! Delicate little bones!
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October 28th, 2009 - 20:48
Nice Dan!
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