Art and Soul in the West Wing

Last month, Norman Rockwell's painting "The Problem We All Live With" was installed in the West Wing of the White House. Politico carried an article about the installation, and Mediaite followed up with a slide show of other "controversial" art choices made by previous Presidents.

Rockwell's illustration was published in Look magazine in 1964 just two months after the assassination of John F. Kennedy and a month before the Civil Rights Act was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.

The painting was based on the story of Ruby Bridges, a six-year-old girl who integrated William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans accompanied by U.S. Marshals sent in by President Eisenhower.

The White House posted this video of President Obama discussing the painting and the incident with Ruby Bridges.

The historic moment was also captured by John Steinbeck in Travels with Charley.

The show opened on time. Sound the sirens. Motorcycle cops. Then two big black cars filled with big men in blond felt hats pulled up in front of the school. The crowd seemed to hold its breath. Four big marshals got out of each car and from somewhere in the automobiles they extracted the littlest negro girl you ever saw, dressed in shining starchy white, with new white shoes on feet so little they were almost round. Her face and little legs were very black against the white. The big marshals stood her on the curb and a jangle of jeering shrieks went up from behind the barricades. The little girl did not look at the howling crowd, but from the side the whites of her eyes showed like those of a frightened fawn. The men turned her around like a doll and then the strange procession moved up the broad walk toward the school, and the child was even more a mite because the men were so big. Then the girl made a curious hop, and I think I know what it was. I think in her whole life she had not gone ten steps without skipping, but now in the middle of her first step, the weight bore her down and her little round feet took measured, reluctant steps between the tall guards. Slowly they climbed the steps and entered the school.

What luck for Rockwell that Steinbeck was on the scene. He drew the same picture with his words.

"Terror Baby"

Rachel Maddow celebrates Barack Obama's 50th birthday (which was yesterday) with a send-up/mash-up of all the "birther" conspiracies. Pretty funny until she gets to the part about how politicians and commentators are STILL hawking confusion and fear about Obama's birth, even after the release of his birth certificate.

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The Lessons of Lincoln

In The New Republic, John Judis argues that Obama needs to take a closer look at Lincoln and his uncompromising acts of courage.

Over the last four decades, the Republican Party has transformed from a loyal opposition into an insurrectionary party that flouts the law when it is in the majority and threatens disorder when it is the minority. It is the party of Watergate and Iran-Contra, but also of the government shutdown in 1995 and the impeachment trial of 1999. If there is an earlier American precedent for today’s Republican Party, it is the antebellum Southern Democrats of John Calhoun who threatened to nullify, or disregard, federal legislation they objected to, and who later led the fight to secede from the union over slavery.

He also argues for Obama to exercise the 14th Amendment option.

His comparison of the 2011 Republican Party with the antebellum South Democrats pre-Civil War is rather chilling. And of course, the fact that it is our first black president experiencing an "insurrectionary party" comparable to the 1860s is a bitter repetition of history.

Hogwash and Vilificaton

Feeling several days behind the "national conversation on race" that the media has been conducting, as I am working on a performance about race issues in America , so I will post the latest and what I think are the more interesting articles and editorials on the Shirley Sherrod smearing/firing/apologizing. But first, the video of Roger Spooner - the farmers at the center of Sherrod's NAACP speech:



Also worth a look - Melissa Harris Lacewell on MSNBC framing the story as the "vilification of black women for sport and political gain."

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From Eugene Robinson in this mornings Washington Post:

After the Shirley Sherrod episode, there's no longer any need to mince words: A cynical right-wing propaganda machine is peddling the poisonous fiction that when African Americans or other minorities reach positions of power, they seek some kind of revenge against whites.

Willie Nelson weighs in on The Huffington Post about Sherrod's advocacy for family farming, as does Andy Borowitz with his headline:

USDA Offers Sherrod Authority Over Farmville

And finally, Rachel Maddow's report on the flip-flopping of Fox News on the Sherrod story:

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Broadway on Pennsylvania Avenue

Monday's "In Performance at the White House" features stars from Broadway. From the LA Times:

The Tony-winning performers are actor-singers Nathan Lane (two Tonys), Audra McDonald (four Tonys), Idina Menzel, Tonya Pinkins and Karen Olivo (one each, for "Wicked," "Jelly's Last Jam" and "West Side Story," respectively), and pianist Marvin Hamlisch, a Tony winner for his score to "A Chorus Line." Working behind the scenes is Jerry Mitchell, Tony-winning choreographer (for the 2004 revival of "La Cage aux Folles"), who will guide 20 Washington, D.C., dance students in a segment from "Hairspray," another show he choreographed.

Also performing are Brian d'Arcy James ("Shrek: The Musical"), Chad Kimball ("Memphis") and Assata Alston, a 12-year-old from Queens, N.Y., who recently debuted at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Whistlin' and Repudiatin'

Dale Roberts, founder of teaparty.org at a 2009 Houston Tea Party rally.


Windy City Watch in a post on Palin's "racial dog whistle" last night on Sean Hannity's show in response to the NAACP resolution on the racism within the Team Party Movement. She calls Obama "half white and half black" and she makes up a new word - "refudiate."

She is implying that white folks can’t be racist against some one who is “half white,” while at the same time reminding folks he is “half Black.” Let’s not forget that Palin’s buddy, radio host and pill popping bigot Rush Limbaugh refers to Obama as a “Halfrican American.” These references have a purpose and its not a celebration of Obama’s diverse background.

In the same interview Palin called on Obama to “refudiate,” (yeah the crazy lady made up the word “refudiate”) the NAACP for its resolution condemning the teabagger movement for the bigotry that is directed at Obama as well as others.

Theater Tradition as Political Buzzword

Eric Alterman in the The Nation on "Kabuki Democracy":

The American political system is nothing if not complicated and so too are the reasons for its myriad points of democratic dysfunction. Some are endemic to our constitutional regime and all but impossible to address save by the extremely cumbersome (and profoundly unlikely) prospect of amending the Constitution. Others are the result of a corrupt capital culture that likes it that way and has little incentive to change. Many are the result of the peculiar commercial and ideological structure of our media, which not only frame our political debate but also determine which issues will be addressed. A few are purely functions of the politics of the moment or just serendipitous bad luck. And if we really mean to change things, instead of just complaining about them, it would behoove us to figure out which of these choke points can be opened up and which cannot. For if our politicians cannot keep the promises they make as candidates, then our commitment to political democracy becomes a kind of Kabuki exercise; it resembles a democratic process at great distance but mocks its genuine intentions in substance.

Kabuki theater is a term that gets tossed around a lot among political journalists. But what does it mean? Carla Blank in Counterpunch explains:

At least since 2006, it has become fashionable for politicians and pundits used the term “kabuki” to describe a frustratingly slow legislative process. As recently as June 1, Thomm Hartmann of Green 960 was describing the new Supreme Court rules about Miranda rights, in which a suspect now has to be the first one to invoke such a right, as “kabuki,” meaning intricate or involved. Neither of these uses define what “kabuki” actually means.
Because the real Kabuki is a theater form full of spectacle involving dance and music, with fabulously painted sets that can magically change before your eyes by revolving on the stage or by appearing and disappearing through trap doors or by being built up by stage carpenters in plain sight, with elaborate costumes, mask-like makeup, and hand props of startling array.

The Auteur President

From The Onion:

Hailed as a sign of renewed government transparency when they began airing last year, President Barack Obama's weekly video addresses have grown increasingly experimental in recent weeks, raising eyebrows nationwide.

Videos like the one that aired Tuesday morning, which begins with Obama outlining his new plan to provide healthier school lunches to the nation's children, but soon devolves into frantic editing, unsettling imagery, and dissonant audio effects, have left many wondering about the president's ultimate message.

Weekly Address: Jobs Creation from White House Weekly Address on Vimeo.

Back to the Future

One of the most depressing paragraphs I've read in a long time. From Craig Crawford at CQ Politics:

Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton as an anti-war candidate. But it was a lie that his supporters chose to ignore. Gen. David Patreus' congressional testimony on Tuesday makes clear that the Obama Administration is for more war, not less. He advocated more fighting in Afghanistan by loosening the rules of engagement, and all but erased the President's faux deadline for exiting by next summer. It's hard to image he would say such things without Obama's tacit approval. Let's face it, for whatever reason, Obama played his base for the fool, winning the Democratic Party nomination in 2008 by perpetuating a fraud.

It seems worth revisiting Obama's speech against the Iraq War, bravely given in 2002 when he was an Illinois State Senator:

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.

That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.

Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair."

The Reviews Are In

Obama's Oval Office address receives mixed, mostly tepid reviews but general agreement that he did not "hit it out of the park." Far from it.

From the New York Times:

We know that the country is eager for reassurance. We’re not sure the American people got it from a speech that was short on specifics and devoid of self-criticism.

From The Huffington Post:

Were you looking for something that resembled a fully-realized action plan, describing a detailed approach to containment and clean up? Or perhaps a definitive statement, severing the command and control that BP has largely enjoyed, in favor of a structured, centralized federal response? Maybe you were looking for a roadmap-slash-timetable for putting America on a path to a clean energy future? Well, this speech was none of those things.

From The Boston Herald:

Oval Office addresses do indeed lend a certain gravitas to any issue, but this one on Day 57 of a crisis can’t begin to undo the lasting damage of both the oil spill and an administration flummoxed in its response.

And in the St. Petersburg Times:

While not particularly inspiring, he accepted responsibility for the massive cleanup and signaled he understands this is a serious test of his administration.

President, first lady catch performance of 'Thurgood' at Kennedy Center

By Associated Press

June 11, 2010 | 5:08 p.m.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama and the first lady are watching a sold-out play about a former Supreme Court justice at the Kennedy Center.

The president and Michelle Obama were seen in the president's box at the Kennedy Center, where they are taking in a performance of "Thurgood," a play about Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

Marshall was the first black justice on the court. He is being played by actor Laurence Fishburne in the one-man show.

As a reminder, Obama's Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan clerked for Thurgood Marshall. Just last week, CBS News found legal memos from her time as Justice Thurgood Marshall’s law clerk that show her sympathetic to abortion and desegregation, and having sympathies towards alternative marriages.