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After 'Inappropriate' NEA Conference Call, White House Pushes New Guidelines
September 22, 2009 12:46 PM
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.
"I would encourage you to pick something, whether it’s health care, education, the environment, you know, there’s four key areas that the corporation has identified as the areas of service," Sergant said on the call.
Buffy Wicks, Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, was also on the call, and thanked the artists "for being on the call and just a deep deep appreciation for all the work you all put into the campaign for the two-plus years we all worked together.”
At another point, Michael Skolnick, political director for hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, said, "I’m hoping that through this group, and the goal of all this, and the goal of this phone call, is through this group we can create a stronger community amongst ourselves to get involved in things we’re passionate about as we did during the campaign. But to continue to get involved in those things, to support some of the president’s initiatives, but also to do things that we are passionate about and to push the president and push his administration."
White House officials say they are enacting specific steps to make sure such a call never happens again.
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 Courrielche -- 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."
Sergant seemed to have some indication on the call that maybe he was coming close to the line of inappropriateness if not crossing it.
"This is just the beginning," Sergant says on the call. "This is the first telephone call of a brand new conversation. We are just now learning how to really bring this community together to speak with the government. What that looks like legally. We're still trying to figure out the laws of putting government websites of Facebook and the use of Twitter. This is all being sorted out. We are participating in history as it's being made, so bear with us as we learn the language so that we can speak to each other safely. And we can really work together to move the needle to get stuff done."
When news of the call broke earlier this month, as ABC News' Yunji de Nies covered at the time, Sergant was reassigned.
In a written statement at the time the agency defended the conference call, saying that they had participated in it "with arts organizations to inform them of the president's call to national service. The White House Office of Public Engagement also participated in the call, which provided information on how the Corporation for National and Community Service can assist groups interested in sponsoring service projects or having their members volunteer on other projects. This call was not a means to promote any legislative agenda and any suggestions to that end are simply false."
-- jpt
September 22, 2009 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (514)
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>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.
It was at this sentence that I stopped reading the article. I've heard the recording on another network, you know the one that is being targeted now. Actually I've heard it twice and he didn't "seem" to encourage but actually did. That got him in trouble, although someone was probably directing him, then he was demoted and later left of was let go. I can't rember which but it doesn't matter. What does matter is your inability or unwilliness to report accurately. This is just a small example of what happens in the media these days. It becomes especially transparent when you pull a story from another source, such as an overseas paper. It is amazing how many details get left out from stories sometimes.
Posted by: Albert L. Louis | Oct 21, 2009 2:02:18 AM
Only 9 months in office and seems like a new case of corruption every day!And these are only the one's the MM doesn't have time to cover up. One can only speculate on the hundreds of others happening every day. Change and transparency LOLLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOlhb
Posted by: irishmafia | Oct 4, 2009 11:29:18 PM
"This call was not a means to promote any legislative agenda and any suggestions to that end are simply false."
Could any reasonable person listen to that call and believe this statement? Ridiculous. They really must think that the American people are idiots.
Posted by: Steve T | Sep 25, 2009 10:10:09 AM
The Dem. speak of the Rep. if Bush would have made any such call the media would be all over it. It's a fact that this admin. doesn't know what's it's doing and that we picked the wrong president. They spend more time back paddling then any admin known to me. this president has an agenda and it showing up little by little. Get with it people and start educating everyone. The facts are here. This ADMIN. is one big mistake that is going to cost us our freedom.
Think Think before we Sink!
Posted by: Tinkersview | Sep 25, 2009 6:51:30 AM
Why isn't the "investigative arm" of ABC doing an in depth report on this for the nightly news? Oh I forgot it is the "All Barack Channel"
Posted by: Explorer65 | Sep 24, 2009 1:09:34 PM
Using government assets to push a political agenda is standard for Obama and his corrupt administration. Tax cheats, Socialists, drug addicts etc. are all welcome in Obama's tent. AS Obama said after his campaign appearances.." they are drinking the juice". He lied his way into office.
Posted by: brian | Sep 24, 2009 8:28:19 AM
Is anyone really surpirsed by this???
Bamma Boy and his gang of thugs must go!!!
2010 and 2012 can't come fast enough.
Posted by: Mary Kelly | Sep 24, 2009 7:50:07 AM
memos being sent out and retraining so that this doesn't happen again. am i reading an ACORN press release?
Posted by: davidfrat21 | Sep 24, 2009 6:08:29 AM
what on earth is this administration doing? using the NEA as a propaganda arm. i guess we'll soon get some "trash the messenger" stories about how the artist who taped this call and exposed the corruption is a right-wing activist who studied art at jerry falwell's university and whose art is "christian" themed (que the horror movie music in the background).
Posted by: davidfrat21 | Sep 24, 2009 6:05:29 AM
Jake, did you FORGET the part where Buffy is on the line telling them it is time to help the President? That is ILLEGAL!
Posted by: wheresmymoney | Sep 23, 2009 7:08:08 PM
This kills me. "INAPPROPRIATE?" lol! No, Mr. President, is is worse than inappropriate, it is is extremely UNETHICAL if not ILLEGAL! This President lacks any type of moral compass as evidenced in his same word, "inappropriate" for the ACORN shenanigans.
We need to clean house, people! One dirty politician at a time, no matter which side of the aisle they slither from.
Posted by: Sunnyr | Sep 23, 2009 6:47:04 PM
What about Buffy Wicks? Is she getting fired for this? What a total digusting waste of taxpayer money. Get rid of the NEA. Vote out the Democrats. Can't wait for 2012 when Jimmy Carter Obama is gone...
Posted by: Dave Palen | Sep 23, 2009 5:25:40 PM
The character of a leader can be seen within the actions of the people under their influence.
Posted by: patrick | Sep 23, 2009 4:23:22 PM
For every instance that is "caught" there are on average 200 that go unreported.
Posted by: Chris | Sep 23, 2009 4:04:23 PM
If ABC has any journalistic integrity left they will NOT see this story as a "standalone" issue involving a few overzealous staff, rather they will do their job and look at the big picture..How this episode is just one in a string of seemingly "unconnected incidents, yet the players in all these groups have the same common thread over and over. Look at the connections of ACORN, SEIU, Apollo Alliance, Tides Foundation, Color Of Change NEA etc..look far enough into the list of directors, founders etc.. and the same names and thought patterns keep coming up over and over again.
Posted by: katy | Sep 23, 2009 3:48:38 PM
Every time I hear Charlie Gibson say "And I hope you had a good day" it just make me angry.
Posted by: Tracy | Sep 23, 2009 10:52:25 AM
Charlie Gibson also stated that he never has heard anything about ACORN, and this guy brings you the news??????
Posted by: Lizzie | Sep 23, 2009 2:36:58 PM
No this story doesn't work. We want to know why this is taking place. Clearly lines were crossed here, just like the ACORN scandal. We need answers, not some quick little cover up so that we forget about it.
The left is claiming that there is corruption on the right with defense contractors, etc as well. It doesn't matter, we want to clean up the corruption and keep the heat on our representatives, and those that work for them and those that are contracted by our government. The goal is the clean up the corruption where ever it is, including in the mainstream media.
Maybe that is where our focus should be next, is to see how many 'inappropriate' ties there are between our government and the mainstream media and clean those up as well.
Posted by: Shawn | Sep 23, 2009 2:27:09 PM
My apologies for mistakening the NEA for the NEA. Similar acronyms after all.
Posted by: denn84116 | Sep 23, 2009 1:47:10 PM
Will these be like the guidelines on ethics and transparency that Obama announced on his first day in office, and then violated over and over again?
Posted by: CM | Sep 23, 2009 1:38:08 PM
Corruption needs to be exposed wherever it exists. I know I'm going off topic here, but TERM LIMITS would be a great help to removing some of the systematic corruption that is of pandemic proportions in government. How about 2 terms for Senators and 4 terms for representatives. Maybe then elected officials would do what they believe is right instead of what they think will help them get re-elected.
Posted by: sheetpan | Sep 23, 2009 1:02:55 PM
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