Sycophancy in Our Time
Once upon a time Lyndon Johnson's chief of staff, Jack Valenti, gave a speech in which he expressed the view that "I sleep better each night knowing that Lyndon Johnson is my president," followed by several sentences of praise for his boss's wisdom, compassion, vision, and strength of character. The reaction, in the nation's capital of 1965, was widespread laughter: Even Herblock, the Washington Post cartoonist who reliably protected Democrats in office, felt obliged to depict Valenti as a whipped servant on the White House plantation.
Now, THE SCRAPBOOK brings you up to 2009, and introduces you to Rocco Landesman, the Broadway producer who is chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. Last week Landesman delivered an address in which he took (in THE SCRAPBOOK's considered opinion) Obama-worship to surreal new heights.
This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln. If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar. That has to be good for American artists.
Where to begin? Well, first of all, Lincoln was a brilliant craftsman of the English language; but unlike the amazing Obama, he never published any books. And of course, there have been other presidents between Caesar and Obama whose language skills, as it were, have been impressive--Thomas Jefferson, for example--or to adapt Landesman's snarky phrase, wrote their own books: Ulysses S. Grant, whose Memoirs are considered a classic of literature, or Woodrow Wilson, whose Congressional Government remains a classic work on the subject. Calvin Coolidge's autobiography has its admirers for its compelling, austere prose, and Dwight D. Eisenhower's Crusade in Europe was so well written that his editor at Doubleday, Ken McCormick, once said that he scarcely changed a syllable.
As a matter of fact, what makes Landesman's assertion so preposterous is that no one believes Obama's Audacity of Hope is anything other than a political potboiler--probably drafted in large part by his Senate staff--and there has been, ahem, credible discussion in the media about who may have ghosted his memoir, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. Everybody knows the story of General Grant racing to finish his memoirs as he was dying of throat cancer, but no one is entirely confident about who, precisely, produced the works of the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar.
Which, of course, is what really makes Landesman's words so embarrassing. What does it mean to call a president "the most powerful writer" in two millennia? Some of the most admired works in any language-- The Consolation of Philosophy, The Pilgrim's Progress, "Letter from Birmingham Jail"--were written by people who conspicuously lacked political power. Adolf Hitler wrote his very own book ( Mein Kampf) and was, for a handful of years, even more powerful than Caesar; but no one would have argued in 1942 that "this has got to be good for [German] artists."
Then again, THE SCRAPBOOK is not especially surprised by this outbreak of philistinism. Landesman's predecessor at the Arts Endowment, Dana Gioia, was one of the most admired poets in America; Landesman owns theaters and produces Broadway shows. George W. Bush may not have been a "powerful writer," but unlike Barack Obama's, his administration's intellectuals were the real thing.
More Icons from the Smithsonian
Fate never closes one door without opening another--or so it seems at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall. Since its opening in 2004, the museum's handsome, expensive, enormous, and mostly empty building at the foot of Capitol Hill has become a showcase for innovations in reflexively left-wing and unintentionally hilarious museology.
The NMAI's current lead exhibit, for example, is a chin-puller called "Ramp it Up: Skateboard Culture in Native America," which "celebrates the vibrancy, creativity, and controversy of American Indian skate culture." It closes November 1, but those who mourn its loss can take heart: The skateboards are being replaced by the "iconic works" of Brian Jungen, a Canadian-Indian artist. The Smithsonian come-on says he explores "themes of globalization, pop culture, museums, and the commodification of Indian imagery." Jungen is a multimedia man. Among his "exquisite objects" are totem poles made from golf bags, ceremonial masks made from Nike sneakers, and a basketball court made from--you guessed it--224 sewing tables. (Must be tricky during a fast break!) A tip o' the feathered headdress to the Smithsonian curators, who never fail to top themselves.
Cross Enrages
Two weeks ago we published a piece in these pages on Buono v. Salazar, the Supreme Court case in which a former National Park Service employee is demanding that the park service take down a memorial cross that has stood in the Mojave National Preserve since 1934. The Court's decision in Buono will likely determine other decisions about the use of religious symbols on public land. One of those cases, American Atheists, Inc. v. Duncan, is now pending before the Tenth Circuit.
In the mid-1970s, the Utah Highway Patrol Association, a nonprofit group that serves as a booster for the friends and families of Utah's state troopers, began the Fallen Trooper Program for officers killed in the line of duty. Families of deceased troopers could request a memorial; the association would pay for the creation of a white cross marker, adorned with the Utah Highway Patrol logo and a plaque with a short biography of the officer. The memorial would be placed near where the officer had died, most often on the side of a highway. No government funds are used to build or maintain the tributes.
The association says it would have been happy to use any symbol; it just happens that the cross is the only symbol that has been requested by families. In 2005, a group called American Atheists sued the Utah Highway Patrol and the state's Department of Transportation, alleging a violation of the Establishment Clause and claiming that individual plaintiffs (on whose behalf they were suing) were "offended and intimidated" by the crosses, because (1) they are located primarily on the side of (government owned) roads; and (2) the memorials include the official Highway Patrol logo.
The Atheists demand that the memorials be taken down. The district court in Utah found against the Atheists, who appealed to the Tenth Circuit. The appeals court is waiting to see which way the Supremes rule in Buono before rendering its decision.
Cases such as Atheists v. Duncan are likely to proliferate if the Court finds against the cross memorial in Buono. Among other things, the plaintiffs contend that the cross is "exclusively a Christian symbol." Which could open a Pandora's Box. Consider, for instance, the American Cemetery at Normandy, where 9,387 World War II servicemen are buried. The graves of Jewish soldiers are marked with a Star of David. All others are marked by a white cross--including 307 "unknown" graves. The same situation applies at the American Cemetery at Flanders Field, where 21 unknown servicemen from World War I are marked by crosses, and at the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery, where 490 unknown soldiers are memorialized with crosses.
Arguably, the cross in such settings, aside from being a Christian symbol, has become a memorial symbol in the American tradition. To remove the cross from the nation's symbolic currency wouldn't just be to strip religion from part of the public sphere, but to chisel away at Americanism itself. But then, for groups like the American Atheists, that's probably the point.
Confucius Say . . .
There's no question this month has been a busy one for members of Congress. The fight over health care has been all-consuming. House majority leader Steny Hoyer is adding even more days in the November congressional calendar just to deal with the legislation. Staffers have been spending 12-hour days on the Hill and working weekends. And yet there was still time for Representative Al Green of Texas to introduce House Resolution 784, "Honoring the 2,560th anniversary of the birth of Confucius and recognizing his invaluable contributions to philosophy and social and political thought." The House then allotted 40 minutes to debate said resolution but quickly decided not to use the time (the resolution did pass).
This brings to mind two thoughts from the man himself: "Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue" and "he who will not economize will have to agonize." Life Imitates Parody
After President Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize, we had a little fun by portraying him in an online parody as winning golf's coveted green jacket of the Masters (see above). Of course we knew it was unlikely the president would win the prestigious golf tourney. At least not this year. But maybe next? According to Mark Knoller of CBS (and as pointed out by Politico), Obama has tied "President Bush in the number of rounds of golf played in office: 24." He points out that it took Bush almost three years to reach this total.
We don't begrudge a president's hitting the links. Golf has been a presidential pastime since the Taft administration (if William Howard Taft could swing a 5-iron, who can't?). But remember all the fun the media had with George W. Bush and his fondness for the sport (and for his exercise regimen in general)? Michael Moore had a field day portraying the former president as caring more about his personal handicap than the war on terror. But just as the press now reports on what a great example President Obama sets for our youth when it comes to the amount of time he spends in the gym or playing basketball, we expect to read similar headlines concerning the president and this intellectual game of golf, a sport that requires a keen sense of perspective, an incredible amount of patience, razor-sharp focus, not only strength but also subtlety, and perhaps if any president were to master this game, it would be . . .
Capitalism Takes Its Revenge
Speaking of Michael Moore . . . Remember when the mainstream media were fawning over the hefty filmmaker's latest screed, Capitalism: A Love Story? THE SCRAPBOOK has been following the film's progress in the press this month. Except there hasn't been much to follow. The movie flopped. Through the end of October, it had grossed only $13 million. Among indie films, its take-per-screen had it lodged last week between Good Hair and Whip It (nope, we hadn't heard of them, either). Michael Moore: not too big to fail. No wonder he's got it in for capitalism.
Correction
Our literary editor Philip Terzian reports ("with considerable mortification") that the essay about Wikipedia that appeared in the October 26 issue ("Wacky Wiki") was written by Joe Queenan, author of Closing Time, and not by Joseph Phelan, editor of Artcyclopedia.com, as we mistakenly indicated. Our apologies to our two distinguished contributing Josephs, and a promise never to confuse them (or our readers) again. </π> <π>