Yes We Can Sell Out

"A government-supported artist is an incompetent whore!" -- Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

It's been more than 24 hours since BigGovernment went live with their report on how the Obama administration used the National Endowment for the Arts to push their agenda, specifically for health care. I don’t know about you, but this turns the hair on the back of my neck straight up. We all know that money sometimes wrongly gets funneled to “charities or corporations of choice” during any administration. Bush was accused of improperly funding Blackwater and Haliburton, Obama has ACORN and Community Organizers. But using the NEA to push a certain agenda focus smacks of propaganda.

Wait...didn't hear about it?  Of course you didn't.  The Old World Media has kept it under wraps pretty well. 

The last time BigGovernment broke a story that was unfavorable to the Obama Administration *cough ACORN *cough  it took days for the Ostrich Media to report it or  in some cases nearly ignore it.

So we here at The Hippos Ass decided to track how long it takes for the media to actually cover this story. We decided to track the web sites of ABC News, CNN, MSNBC, CBS and The New York Times, as well as explore what other websites are covering this story.

Day 1 Search for National Endowment for the Arts

CNN      Nothing
MSNBC  Nothing
ABCNews   One story (Charlie Gibson probably didn't want to be embarrassed again)
CBS News One Story  CBS's story is very much a CYA story from the administration)
The New York Times One story...same story as CBS. Hmmmmmm
The Washington Post is covering...O'Keefe and Giles?

So going into day two of the Media Blackout Finals we have CNN and MSNBC.  Stay tuned.

There is a certain creepiness behind this whole scenario. Take the opposite stand if you will for one moment.  Imagine if President Bush, in the run up to the Iraq War, had asked the NEA to create Pro War art and songs.  The whole mess would never have gotten past the initial email invite before there was an uproar from the liberal community and the press. They would be justified as well.  This is not the purpose behind the National Endowment for the Arts.

Artists have always been looked upon as pushing the boundaries of the status quo, forcing us to look outside the little boxes we live in and view reality from a different angle.  Art does have a very prominent place in a well educated and cultured society.  All the more reason for the Federal Government to stay the hell out of it.  The fear of Government funding has always been that one administration or other would seek to control the funded organization for some nefarious purpose.

The transcripts from BigGovernment.com show all too well that this was a coordinated attempt to use art to help push through the Obama Administration's agenda. The art community seem to have found it easy to sell out for a few pieces of the Government Pie.

A pie that you and I pay for.  And right on the heals of the media ignoring the ACORN and NEA Scandals, we find that the Obama Administration is open to the idea "aid" for newspapers...(find out more in tomorrow's Hippos Ass).

It may be time to pull out my well worn copy of Orwell again.

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