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With Yosi Gone, is Buffy Next?

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Welcome Instapundit and  Big Government readers!

Now that former National Endowment for the Arts communications director Yosi Sergant has resigned from the National Endowment for the Arts after leading that conference call, will his White House counterpart Buffy Wicks also step down?  (Via Instapundit.)  As Patrick Courrielche, who also participated, reminds us:

And from the transcript of the call it is obvious that she was aware of the goal of the call, which was to “support some of the President’s initiatives,” and cognizant of the audience’s affinity for the President, hence her thanking them for the two-plus years of support on his campaign.

In his piece, Courrielche explains why this resignation does not end the matter.  To be sure, NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman faulted “the call for being ‘inappropriate and [saying] that Sergant had acted “unilaterally” in helping to organize it.”

Yeah, but Ms. Wicks, a White House official, was also in on the call.  That may be unilateral from the point of view of the NEA, but not if we recall that he appears to be acting on behalf of the Administration.  If it’s inappropriate for one government official to be in on the call, wouldn’t it then follow that it’s inappropriate for other federal officials to actively promote the political agenda of her colleague at the NEA.

Courrielche wants to know just how unilateral was the call, asking

. . .  what specific aspect of his actions were unilateral and without approval? Definitely not the encouragement of the art community to tackle health care, energy and the environment, because that same request was part of a different but similar conference call invitation scheduled for August 27th. That invitation was sent out by Kalpen Modi (”Kal Penn”), Associate Director for the White House Office of Public Engagement, and was sent to a completely different arts group.

And then there’s the little matter of the “a group of 21 arts organizations” endorsing the President’s health reform plan only 48 hours after the call.  Did Buffy do anything more to round up their support?

While the White House and the media may wish to move on, this matter is far from over.  Asking if this represents an “an abuse of power,” the Anchoess contends that if former President George W. “Bush had done this, or if the Obama White House were Republican, we’d be watching a screamfest on all channels, calls for investigations, probably a call for a special prosecutor, and Olbermann’s head would be exploding.”

And she’s right.  The story would be geting far more attention had a Bush Administration official attempted to enlist non-partisan groups, potential recipients of federal funds, in an effort to support (and promote) its legislative initiatives.

Kudos to ABCNews Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper who, seemingly alone among reporters working for MSM outlets, has stayed on top of this story (as he has been on many stories not entirely favorable to the Obama Administration and the narratives of his colleagues).

Comments

  1. It would be my “ask” of Ms. Wicks that she, with as much creative flair as she can muster, pack her bags and leave as well and perhaps take Kalpen Modi with her.

    Additionally, I don’t think we need to compare what would have happened if George W. Bush would have done this because he didn’t. We need to look forward to when times change as they always do. Thus the question becomes are they willing to commit the same energy and enthusiasm if the president were Sarah Palin?

    Thanks for the opportunity and continued success

  2. I really hope the pressure continues to mount and that Buffy is shown the door. Otherwise, it will simply encourage all of the activists and community organizers populating Obama’s administration to continue doing exactly what they did in their previous jobs and are surely doing from the White House, only now they get to use billions in taxpayer dollars to promote their liberal agenda. The coverage of this heinous shrew and her attacks on Wal-Mart backed by big labor over at Breitbart’s Big Government (that GP linked in a previous post about this woman) is excellent:

    http://biggovernment.com/2009/09/21/another-big-labor-operative-in-white-house-has-acorn-ties/

    I love the fact that she’s described as a “professional troublemaker,” and I especially like the telling picture of Wicks, stupidly grinning behind her computer monitor which is COVERED with Obama stickers.

  5. Yosi is not really gone. When you flush into a river, it keeps bobbing up. The “Progressive” underground of community organizers repackage their people and move them around like circus roustabouts. Yosi is now free to organize the community of propaganda artists who “coincidentally” will receive NEA grants. He was fired for getting caught.

  6. Truer words were never spoken, heliotrope. Just like Van Jones left teh WH only to get sucked up in the Big-Liberalism vacuum of organizations to be recycled and reinjected back into government policy at the right time and place after he’s been forgotten. After all, they keep resurecting retreads from the Clinton and even Carter administrations, don’t they?

  11. My question is when will the “Justice” dept. step in and investigate all the laws broken. Will they go after Obama’s people with the same zeal they pursued “Scooter” Libby???? I’m not holding my breath…

  12. There sure is a lot of overt actions taking place within the White House in very lose proximity to a felony violation of the Hatch Act.

    A criminal conspiracy usually is followed up by a special prosecutor and jail time for members of the group doing the covering up.

    So, I expect soon to see Buffy being frogmarched out of the White House in handcuffs.

  13. Recycling is very chic. They get recycled, still crusade to detroy the nation. Still a free country, they’re allowed. Can we please learn this civics lesson called Obama? Been there, done that. Carter; stupid-mad nation elects a bigot, US hater.
    Clinton? had Hilary, socialist US hater. Gore? Kerry? near misses, both socialist US haters. Obama? stupid-mad nation elects socialist bigot, US hater. I sense a trend. Get mad? Okay, but stop electing radical bigots to get even. Buffy? Valerie? Get them ALL out of the government, away from control of our money. And hey, GREAT SITE, LOVE IT.