Official dishonesty from the National Endowment for the Arts

By Kerry Picket on Sept. 1, 2009 into Water Cooler

9/2/09 UPDATE: Video from Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck playing excerpts from the August 10th conference call

9/2/09 UPDATE: Transcript of phone interview added.

On a previous blog, the Washington Times Water Cooler reported that we contacted the National Endowment for the Arts's (NEA) Yosi Sergant about an August 10th conference call invitation sent out to artists and other creative influence peddlers. When asked if the NEA sent the invitation, Mr. Sergant denied the NEA had sent the invitations to any participants for the conference call and refused to send the Washington Times a copy of the invite. AUDIO

OPERATOR: Kerry?

WASHINGTON TIMES: Yeah?

OPERATOR: You have Yosi Sergant in the communications office.

WASHINGTON TIMES : Okay.

YOSI SERGANT: Hello?

WASHINGTON TIMES: Hi, this is Kerry Picket. I’m calling from the Washington Times Editorial page.

SERGANT: Hi, Kerry. How are you?

WASHINGTON TIMES: Fine thank you. Hey, I understand that there was a conference call on August 10^th that the NEA invited producers, artists, marketers, etcetera.

SERGANT: The NEA didn’t invite…We were a participant in a call. It was a third party that did the invitation.

WASHINGTON TIMES: I see. I was wondering If you could send me, if possible, a copy of the invitation?

SERGANT: Umm…It didn’t come from us, so I don’t have it to distribute. You’d go to them for that.

WASHINGTON TIMES: Uh-huh. So who is the third party?

SERGANT – I believe it was Michael Skolnick. This is something you should call the Corporation for National Service about.

WASHINGTON TIMES: National Corporation of…I’m sorry?

SERGANT – The Corporation for National and Community Service.

WASHINGTON TIMES: Michael Skolnick?

SERGANT: No, he’s a third party, but the Corporation who set up the conference call, and who conducted the conference call is another federal agency.

WASHINGTON TIMES: Great. Thank you.

Yet, Big Hollywood's Patrick Courrielche was invited to participate in the August 10th pow-wow, and he posted the email invite from Yosi Sergant yesterday on Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood's website:

It looks as if Mr. Sergant seems to be playing fast and loose with the truth. The Washington Times called Mr. Sergant three times today to comment on this invitation that Mr. Courrielche had received from Mr. Sergant's NEA email, but we have not received a response yet. This blog will be updated should new information come in.

Comment

There are 12 Comments

Mnewman

I think, from what he said in the conference call,he's checking with some Lawyers to see how legal what they are doing actually is.

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lanie

This is getting to be a routine dodge with members of this administration: "It wasn't us, it was a third party which was responsible." Frankly, I'm already sick of the disingenuousness of it.

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Des

I suppose this is what Obama meant by "transparent." The NEA is completely transparent when it comes to the level of sycophantic hero-worship of Obama among it's members.

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Mnewman

and who can forget "no controlling legal authority..."

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el_polacko

wow.. breitbart is breaking news ! good for him. i just want to echo 'lanie'... barack's m.o. since the beginning of his campaign has been to throw up his clean hands and blame that group of sycophants over there. it's tired, barack.

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rbloodworth

good job, breitbart! Not only does this Yosi guy not know how to tell the truth, especially about something so easily verified, he doesn't know you don't end a sentence with a preposition. I guess the Obamatrons respect the Rules of Grammar as much as they respect the Rule of Law and the Constitution.

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optionyout

Unbelieveably that only the conservative press covering this story. This country's media needs to wakeup. And there ought to be some serious inquires into how a nationally funded non-profit is pushing a partisan agenda. How the heck can they keep their charter?

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PTJackson

I watched the program about the NEA call that you link to and it is clear that Glenn Beck inadvertently superimposed his own thoughts and fears onto what actually took place. Sergant simply stated that he thought that artists could help inspire increased volunteerism in the country, and he named the areas where the White House was encouraging people to volunteer--education, etc. This is such a positive thing. Beck assumes that Sergant was asking artists to promote particular political views. However, that was not on the call. I wonder what Beck thought when George Bush encouraged churches and non-profits to contribute to their communities?

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amj474

This is so shameful and disgusting that this has been twisted this much. This is what was created http://iparticipate.org/ http://www.serve.gov/ And it does make want to go out and either donate my money or my time to some good causes. Shame on you!

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sweetp

I agree with PT, this is not a political issue. It is about service. A call to service. I do not know anyone republican or democrat, left or right,who does not think service is a good idea. And we are talking about a call to service in our own country..It is promoting the idea of helping one another. Maybe if more people thought about service we wouldn't be in such a mess.Obviously Glenn Beck is self taught.

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jakeGrimm

Unfortunately, if this was an honest call to service, it is contradicted by the dishonesty and attempts to deny responsibility. Any time that becomes evident there is little doubt that there was an ulterior or underhanded objective. Any attempt to honestly do good here is contradicted by the dishonesty and subterfuge.

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leonah

Umm . . . really? You actually perceive this conference conversation as honest? to paraphrase: checking into the legality of their plan; learning the "language" so they can speak "safely" on FaceBook; federally funded entities scheming to "push" a political agenda. One of these three things is a funding violation, and the other two speak to the deception practiced by the NEA (no surprise) and the Arts and to the quality of the character of the people involved. If this "call to service" was so honest, explain why yosi denied distributing the invitation. It occurs to me that, if I wanted to recruit volunteers to a legitimate undertaking, I would be grateful at the opportunity to share the details of the program with the Post in hopes that the program would be inundated with interested parties. That's the way "volunteer recruitment" works. However, as this conference call was "invitation only," it appears yosi suffered a lapse in judgment and underestimated the integrity, courage & independent thinking of one artist he considered a lemming.

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Official dishonesty from the National Endowment for the Arts

There are 12 Comments

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