Conservative Blogosphere Wins Again, White House Issues New NEA Guidelines

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As the Obama-loving media continue to abdicate their journalistic responsibilities in order to blindly support the President's agenda, the conservative blogosphere has for the third time in as many weeks uncovered dirty little secrets that have precipitated immediate action from the White House or entities close to it.

In response to revelations published Monday by Big Hollywood, the Obama administration on Tuesday issued new guidelines for conference calls held by the National Endowment for the Arts.

This comes in the same month that investigative efforts by the rightosphere led to the resignation of Obama green jobs czar Van Jones as well as the federal defunding of the controversial organization ACORN.

According to ABC's Jake Tapper, just hours after the release of Patrick Courrielche's stunning exposé about the Administration using the NEA to help drive the President's agenda via the art community, new guidelines have been mandated by the White House to prevent it from happening again:

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An August 10, 2009 National Endowment for the Arts conference call in which artists were asked to help support President Obama's agenda -- a call that at least one good government group called "inappropriate" -- has prompted the White House to issue new guidelines to prevent such a call from ever happening again.

"The point of the call was to encourage voluntary participation in a national service initiative by the arts community," White House spokesman Bill Burton told ABC News. "To the extent there was any misunderstanding about what the NEA may do to support the national service initiative, we will correct it.   We regret any comments on the call that may have been misunderstood or troubled other participants.  We are fully committed to the NEA's historic mission, and we will take all steps necessary to ensure that there is no further cause for questions or concerns about that commitment." 

In the call, Yosi Sergant, then the NEA's communications director, seemed to encourage the listeners to create art to further the president's goals by promoting the United We Serve campaign and create art specific to areas of health care, education and the environment. [...]

Today White House officials are meeting with the chiefs of staff of the executive branch agencies to discuss rules and best practices in this area, a conversation during which they will be told that that while White House lawyers do not believe that the NEA call violated the law, "the appearance issues troubled some participants," Burton said. "It is the policy of the administration that grant decisions should be on the merits and that government officials should avoid even creating the incorrect appearance that politics has anything to do with these decisions."

After listening to the transcript and the audio posted at the conservative website BigHollywood.Breitbart.com -- secretly recorded by Los Angeles filmmaker Patrick Couriellech -- Melanie Sloan, executive director of the good-government group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), told ABC News that the call was "disturbing."

"Government agencies are not supposed to be engaged in political activities," Sloan said. "Here, because they didn't veer off into 'This is about the election,' where you'd get into violations of the Hatch Act, it's not illegal. But it doesn't look good -- it looks terrible. It's inappropriate."

The Hatch Act restricts the political activity of executive branch employees of the federal government.

Said Sloan of the conference call: "It's not what the NEA was created for, it's not supposed to be helping the president's agenda; that's not the point."

Burton added that the White House will be issuing a formal memo for White House staff "to that effect and will be doing training sessions and personal visits with staff here to make sure the message gets across."

In the end, this appears to be almost as big an embarrassment for the media as it is the White House, as mainstream news outlets were once again scooped by a conservative website.

To quote Jon Stewart, "You know what investigative media...where the hell were you?"

—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters. Follow him at Facebook and Twitter.


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Heh heh heh... “There

Heh heh heh...

“There are no easy answers' but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.” - Ronald Reagan (1964 Republican Convention)

All you guys out there.....

Keep doin' what you're doin'!!

They think they can get away with everything, since the Ministry of Information is on their side!

But there's a new posse in town, now, so watch out!

I just love this (all emphasis mine):

A call was made in which artists were asked to help support President Obama's agenda -

and then they claim there was confusion!!

To the extent there was any misunderstanding about what the NEA may do to support the national service initiative ....

No....no confusion! No misunderstanding!   I think Mr. Sargent was quite clear about what he wanted....

And therein lies the problem.....

This administration will try anything once, just to see if they can get away with it.

Thank heave for bloggers!  You guys are the watchdogs.  The Legacy Media  are a bunch of has-beens.  They are like Congresscritters....so comfortable in their cushy jobs and enjoying the perks that they have long forgotten what they are supposed to do.

 

ROTFLMAO

((( If it keeps going like this for the leftnut messiah, he will get his FCC henchmen to clamp down on free speech and shut down the internet.

 To quote Jon Stewart, "You know what investigative media...where the hell were you?"

((( They were where they always are, on their knees bowing to their political messiah and performing their teabagging services.

 "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." -Winston Churchill

I am curious

Has the MSM just recently gone over the edge and given up all jounalistic integrity(which now seems to be an oxymoron) or has it just increased exponentially since Dear Leader was elected?

I know they were happy to drag Bush through the mud anytime, anywhere but it just seems out of control now.  

 

"Curses, foiled again! Damn

"Curses, foiled again! Damn you, right wing bloggers! Okay, let's go to Plan G..." 

The "Mainstream" Media: By liberals. For liberals.

It's okay, they will get it

It's okay, they will get it right. They all work for the trainer of ACORN. The organizer in chief.

This is rich coming from

This is rich coming from the likes of Melanie Sloan...I've followed this as much as possible.

Great investigative work being done by so many...I once again thank goodness for the internet, talk radio and Fox.

Problem for me is, the left will usually attempt to circumvent all of whatever the outrageous scandal is at the moment in a different mode via congress.

Whatever it takes for them...they won't stop.

Going to be an interesting up-coming year.

'Go Green...Recycle Congress'

Oops.  Wrong thread.

Oops.  Wrong thread.

MB - glad to know I'm not

MB - glad to know I'm not the only one who does that.

 

"Reason and persuasion are the only practical instruments against error.  To make way for these, free inquiry must be indulged" - Thomas Jefferson

"Performing Artists"

Ghee, I wonder how many of ACORN's tax code "Performing Artists" belong to the NEA and receiving grant money? Follow all grant money!