There's no way to not recognize that this is a political set of issues, so I'll try to pull from a few variant perspectives on this one.
First, Mother Jones:
Beck's Next Scalp: NEA's Yosi Sergant
Glenn Beck has another scalp. Yosi Sergant, communications director for the National Endowment for the Arts, stepped down today after Beck and the conservative Washington Times accused him of improperly encouraging artists to support the political goals of the Obama administration.
On August 10th, Sargent joined a conference call with the White House Office of Public Engagement and roughly 75 artists, musicians, writers, filmmakers, and other creatives, according to Patrick Courrielche, an Los-Angeles based art consultant who blogged about the call late last month before appearing on Beck's show. He described the call as "an attempt to recapture the excitement and enthusiasm of the campaign," and use artists as "tools of the state" to support the administration's positions.
Next, Judicial Watch:
Documents Include Emails from Former NEA Communications Director Yosi Sergant, who Resigned over the Scandal, and Former Actor and Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement Kalpen Modi
Contact Information:
Press Office 202-646-5172, ext 305
Washington, DC -- October 29, 2009Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request related to the NEA's controversial August 10 conference call encouraging artists to create work that promotes the Obama agenda. The documents consist of internal NEA correspondence, including emails involving disgraced former NEA Communications Director Yosi Sergant, who resigned over the scandal, and former actor and current Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, Kalpen Modi. The emails newly document detailed White House involvement in the controversial conference call. (The Corporation for National and Community Service, which runs the AmeriCorps program, also was represented during the call.)
Judicial Watch has the PDF of the actual email correspondence, which is best read with a window open so that the fumes from the black magic marker used to heavily redact a whole bunch of names don't get in the way of reading it.
