The story to watch this morning, folks, is the developing one about the NEA *UPDATED*
Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government started it this morning with a post describing the now infamous NEA conference call that used tax payer funds to get NEA supported artists to prepare Obama propaganda.
That is not the end of the story. To give you background, the Media Mythbusters wiki has a whole page set up regarding the NEA kerfuffle. I can guarantee you that, if you watch this page, it will grow.
Michelle Malkin has more details about this breaking scandal, as well as a request to you, the public, for help.
Lastly, keep an eye on Lucianne.
Folks, I have it on very good authority that you will want to watch this story as it develops. It doesn’t have the sex and crime aspects that forced the media at least to blink on the ACORN story, but reputable scuttlebutt is that something is going on here. I don’t know what, but something. Something significant.
As for me, I’ll try to keep this story updated as the day goes by, but I’m peripheral, and can mostly serve as a road map to the real locations.
UPDATE: And here it is, from Big Hollywood:
Should the National Endowment for the Arts encourage artists to create art on issues being vehemently debated nationally?
That is the question that I set out to discuss a little over three weeks ago when I wrote an article on Big Hollywood entitled The National Endowment for the Art of Persuasion?”
The question still requires debate but the facts do not.
The NEA and the White House did encourage a handpicked, pro-Obama arts group to address politically controversial issues under contentious national debate. That fact is irrefutable.
Read the rest here — it’s long, but everything is worth considering, because it represents a sea change in administration use of public funds. This the first time every that an administration has used your tax dollars to advance a partisan agenda, through an ostensibly non-partisan, government funded forum. This makes it different from something like PBS and NPR. Although both are wildly left in their politics, that Leftism arises from the biases of the employees themselves. What we have with this NEA scandal is something entirely new: the government itself directing the Leftism of a publicly funded organization.
For more information and analysis, check out Big Hollywood’s sister site, Big Government, which has extensive blogging analysis on the implications of the NEA conference call.
UPDATE II: James Taranto has an admirably neat summary of the scandal.
