Thinkin’bout Stuff

The NEA communication director who participated on a conference call to encourage artists to create works promoting President Obama’s agenda has resigned.  Other Obama officials participating on that call will be using this as a “learning experience”.

Assuming we believe the Obama team never heard of the Hatch Act, it appears they believe they have found a get-out-of-trouble free card —> Caught doing something unethical or even illegal?  Oops… didn’t realize, our bad, we will us it as a learning experience.

Fox News – White House officials released new guidelines on public outreach meetings, saying the conference call hosted in part by the NEA offered the Obama administration a “teaching moment” on separating policy and politics.

A shame no one working in this White House has any responsibility to ensure they don’t do something stupid (like buy gifts for foreign heads of state at the corner store) or illegal (like violating the Hatch Act).  Next time you are pulled over by a friendly police officer for exceeding the speed limit, be sure to apologize and offer to use this as a learning experience.

… NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman said Sergant acted “unilaterally and without the approval or authorization” of then-Acting Chairman Patrice Walker Powell regarding the call.

“Some of the language used by the former NEA director of communications was, unfortunately, not appropriate and did not reflect the position of the NEA,” Landesman’s statement continued. “This employee has been relieved of his duties as director of communications.”

True, after all the uproar over this latest gaffe the man resigned (initially he was reassigned), but did he really act unilaterally?  Why didn’t someone else on the call speak up and say that was inappropriate?  Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement Buffy Wicks, among others, also participated on the call, but was apparently unaware of the purpose for the call and must have stepped away when Sergant was speaking.

Sergant was one of several officials on an hour-long conference call on Aug. 10 hosted by the NEA, the White House Office of Public Engagement and United We Serve, a nationwide initiative launched by President Obama to increase volunteerism.

The explanation?

“We should consider this call to be a reminder and a teaching moment,” the memorandum reads. “It was organized with the best of intentions to promote community service and volunteerism, something the administration does with many constituencies and something we will continue to do. The misunderstandings that flowed from the call should serve as a lesson going forward of the need to take extra care in planning outreach to ensure it complies with these general principles.”

Doesn’t appear to be in sync with the message of the call:

… (the call) sought focused efforts by the approximately 75 artists on the call to produce works of art that supported the Obama administration’s agenda in areas like health care, energy and environment, education and community renewal.

… one of the artists on the call, labeled it a “well thought-out pitch” to encourage artists to create art on those issues.

Sounds like team Obama had a pretty clear agenda for the call, until someone snitched… then it was some rogue dude acting on his own… no one else had any idea he was so far out there… we can all learn from this… will never happen again… never really happened in the first place if you think about it… everyone on the call knew he was speaking out of turn.. after all, he was only the NEA communication director, we couldn’t reasonably expect him to present a clear message…