Again?! Another Admin Member Resigns Over Con Yelping

[Nuclear Unicorn]

Embattled former National Endowment for the Arts communications director Yosi Sergant is out of a job. Late this afternoon, the NEA released a short statement saying, "This afternoon Yosi Sergant submitted his resignation from the National Endowment for the Arts. His resignation has been accepted and is effective immediately." The agency provided no further details.

Sergant had been under scrutiny after leading a controversial conference call on August 10, where he encouraged artists to create work to promote the Obama administration's agenda. Sergant was initially removed from his post as communications director, but continued to work at the NEA.

Just two days ago, NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman defended the conference call, saying it “was not a means to promote any legislative agenda and any suggestions to that end are simply false.”

Still, the White House thought the incident serious enough issue new guidelines to prevent another such call and to held meetings with the chiefs of staff of the executive branch agencies to discuss rules and best practices. Administration attorneys do not believe Sergant violated any laws.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/09/yosi-sergant-resigns.html

I need an aspirin.

[Taverner]

1. Thank Glenn Beck and his army of fucktards

No offense to the truly mentally challenged

[tularetom]

2. The administration should have turned down his offer to resign

Why would they give assholes like beck a taste of blood?

I thought Rahm Emanuel was the guy who understood how to play dirty. I guess he only likes to play dirty when he deals with progressive Dems.

[butterfly77]

5. I think a lot of them resign because..

Fox keeps drumming up more and more lies and probably goes into their families' personal business.

[anigbrowl]

3. I think it's a good sign; it shows that the administration does not tolerate politics as usual

I wasn't bent out of shape about it, but I thought the original actions (of asking people to create art specifically backing a political agenda) was ill-judged and a misuse of NEA time and resources, as the NEA's mission is to promote excellence in the arts rather than any particular point of view.

Officials in any administration need to consider how their actions reflect on the government and whether they really further the mission of the department. Even if Sergant is guilty of nothing more than political tone-deafness, his remarks created a misleading impression of what the NEA does. He shouldn't be working as a national communication director if he isn't aware of how his remarks will be perceived.

[opihimoimoi]

6. Clarity requires cleanleness...better to let go of wrong doers than to attempt stonewalling

[TreasonousBastard]

9. Yup.

[sabrina 1]

10. So, Democrats are required to hire only flawless human beings while

Republicans like Bush can keep people who LIE to Congress, such as Rumsfeld, and worse, give them medals of freedom. People like Gen. Sanchez, also given a medal of freedom after being named in the Taguba report as complicit in the torture crimes.

The result of the difference in handling these situations, is that Rummy and Sanchez are regarded as Patriots by most of the population, despite the major crimes they have committed against humanity.

On the Dem. side, decent people are made to look like criminals and in the minds of the public, probably are.

This is POLITICS, it's not Sunday school. And the politics of caving in to the rightwing slime, the same ones who went after ACORN and Van Johnson and will now move on to their next victim, is BAD politics! This is making Obama look weak and unable to make even simple decisions such as choosing cabinet members. And it isn't going to stop. They intend to bring him down and he's helping them every step of the way. I want a fighter for a leader. People are sick and tired of this behavior, more tired of it than a few insignificant mis-steps (why is that word not even the vocabulary of the Dems. IT was used to great effect by Bush).

Breitbart, the rabid rightwinger who hosted the ACORN illegal videos on his site, moved on from ACORN this week and went after the NEA. Obama has now handed them another victory. They don't even have to fight.

Good politics would have been to dismiss their whining in public, using the power of the presidency that WE helped him achieve, to diminish them to the status of the worms that they are. Once he caved on Van Johnson, everyone predicted it would just go on and on.

Go to Breitbart's blog, BigGovernment which I do not want to link to, to see their plans in action. I posted about them going after the NEA a few days ago.

So, a presidential aid gave some advice, not nearly as serious as what Bush did when he paid rightwing ideologues with tax-payer money, to write about his programs, and Democrats, once again run for the hills.

WHEN are they going to stand and fight? This is war and they are not even armed. I am thoroughly disgusted at their lack of leadership and courage. What this guy did is NOTHING in politics and should have been treated that way.

[anigbrowl]

14. I like having higher standards than the GOP

I support the Democratic party because I don't believe you should be in office just for your own ends. You are free to prefer a more militant candidate or style of government if you prefer.

[sabrina 1]

19. I like having the Democratic iParty in power. I do not support any

actions taken that will guarantee what happened under Clinton when Dems lost Congress because they were too afraid to take on the right.

A lot is at stake for a lot of people. Much more than trying to show how above it all we are ~ so, thanks for your judgement, I used to want to take the high road, but realized we are dealing with criminals who are armed to the teeth and severely harming this country and millions of its citizens. It is a question of priorities at this point. Another war in Iran? Or ignoring the pretend outrage of the likes of Glenn Beck. We didn't elect Glenn Beck or Andrew Breitbart, but so far, they appear to be running the show.

[librechik]

4. Wow. Urging artists to create for their president. Why wasn't he guillotined?

I can't think of anything worse than that!

Other than starting a foreign war and urging citizens to KILL FOR THEIR PRESIDENT!!!

but that's ok.

[anigbrowl]

8. The NEA exists for the government to promote the arts, not the other way around

Mr Sargent appears not to have understood this, or if he did he expressed the idea really badly. I work in the arts myself, think that the NEA plays an important and necessary role in civic society, and does it best when it focuses on art rather than political considerations. Other federal agencies may commission artists or designers to help them articulate their mission to the public, but that's not the NEA's job.

[librechik]

17. The NEA used to give out grants

I know that was recently ended. But stipends to worthy arts groups (and individuals) were normal back in the 90s when I worked in the arts.

[anigbrowl]

22. Indeed, but I don't think they were predicated on subject matter

I am all in favor of giving out grants for the arts - that's not the same as commissioning art in relation to current policy initiatives.

[librechik]

24. That happens all the time. Govt funded Public art for example, is often themed

and nobody thinks twice about it. I never got an NEA grant, but if I had, I'm sure part of my creative joy would be that I was doing it for my country. Of course therer's no danger that we would develop a "state art" although perhaps we were close during the WPA years back in the 30s. That would be laughable nowadays.

IMO, government should be a major funder of art, out of pride in the creativity of our country. Other countries do that, and become identified with their art product--to their great aggrandizement. We've been propogandized out of that concept here, to our great loss.

[TreasonousBastard]

7. "promote the agenda" is the key. It's called politicizing the...

office, and if a Bush appointee tried that, we'd want his head and have pictures of Goebbels all over the place.

I hate that he had to be fired, and even more that he gave those assholes ammunition, but it looks like he was out of line.

[gatorboy]

15. It's true. The difference is if a Bush appointee tried this.

He'd still have a job.

[csziggy]

11. NPR had a story about this and I wondered if this was going to happen

Transcript of the NPR show which included a portion of a tape of a conference call -

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113135814

NPR's Elizabeth Blair reports.

ELIZABETH BLAIR: The conference call on August 10th was hosted by the NEA, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and United We Serve, President Obama's national service initiative. On the phone were artists, marketers and consultants, many of whom worked on President Obama's campaign. Much of the conference call was devoted to explaining United We Serve. But when Yosi Sergant, the NEA's then director of communications got on the line, his language was less informational and more like a call to action.

Mr. YOSI SERGANT (Former Director of Communications, National Endowment for the Arts): I would encourage you to pick something, whether it's health care, education, the environment. (Unintelligible) would be to apply artistic, you know, your artistic creative community's utilities and bring them to the table.

BLAIR: The conference call was recorded by Patrick Courrielche, an L.A.-based artist, arts producer and blogger.

Mr. PATRICK COURRIELCHE (Artist): For them to come to our community and mention health care and talk to this group about health care, that's what I thought was unusual. At the time, in the beginning of August, it was the biggest debate on television.

BLAIR: Patrick Courrielche has written extensively about the column, accusing the NEA of setting up a propaganda machine.

Mr. COURRIELCHE: When you have the National Endowment for the Arts on the phone call, asking a group to address specific issues that are being debated, I absolutely have a problem with that.

More: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113135814

Wonder who this Courrielche guy is?

His blog: http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/author/pcourrielche/

His Twitter (http://twitter.com/courrielche) BIO reads: "# Bio Husband Father Tolerance Libertarian Liberty Lakers Music Ideas Filmmaker"

He's done interviews with Glenn Beck:

Glenn Beck Drops a Bomb and the NEA Makes a Stink.
04
September
Susannah

This week, Glenn Beck has broadcast a series of shows covering the National Endowment for the Arts’ attempt to influence artists to participate in propaganda programs for the Obama Administration (see videos below). To be specific, Beck did several interviews with Patrick Courrielche, a blogger for BigHollywood.com. During the interview, Mr. Courrielche told Beck that the NEA had sent out mass emails to many artists and bloggers, and that he had participated in a conference call with the NEA (that he recorded and that Beck played on his show) in which Yosi Sergant of the NEA said the following—

“We are just now learning how to really bring this community together to speak with the government. What that looks like legally.”

More: http://hillbillypolitics.com/tag/patrick-courrielche/

I think I know as much as I need to about Mr. Courrielche.

[robcon]

26. The administration should be congratulated.

Sergent was WAY out of line, and the new guidelines are reinforced and reiterated by the Sergent resignation.

The administration cannot allow the NEA to be politicized in so obvious a way.

[Bumblebee]

12. Let's be fair: if a Bush appointee said what he said on that call, we would be calling for his/her

resignation.

[louis-t]

13. But he/she would not have resigned. That's the point.

And the stupids would have defended their "right" to do what they did, make up excuses, lie, spin, etc.

[Bumblebee]

20. so shouldn't we rejoice that in this administration when wrong approaches are

taken, it's admitted and people are accountable? You cannot have it both ways.

[gatorboy]

16. And we never would have gotten it.

[DebbieCDC]

18. This is what happens when you let them get away with it once

[muntrv]

21. Obama, quit giving in to the repukes.

[Libertas1776]

23. So am I to believe, by the logic of this resignation,

that the WPA art that promoted the New Deal and Roosevelt Administration's agenda was a bad thing?

[Nuclear Unicorn]

25. @ Post#11

Bighollywood.com is part of biggovernment.com...Andrew Not-So-Breitbart.

The same people that let O'Keefe and Giles set-up ACORN.

And all our side did was act as if we were guilty of something.