Caving In on the Arts? : Timing of NEA head’s departure is troubling

Last Thursday, Republican presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan attacked President Bush for supporting the National Endowment for the Arts, which Buchanan called “the upholstered playpen of the arts and crafts auxiliary of the Eastern liberal Establishment.” Buchanan is campaigning in Georgia, which he insults in his apparent belief that people there will lap this stuff up.

Unfortunately, on no real evidence, Bush has now made the same presumption. Having defended NEA Chairman John E. Frohnmayer against earlier attacks led by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), the President--on the day after Buchanan’s attack--abruptly accepted Frohnmayer’s resignation. We read the resignation as a firing and find it deplorable.

As NEA general counsel Amy Sabrin wrote Monday in The Times: “The NEA is an independent federal agency, which means that the council and the chairman, although appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, serve fixed terms. This gives the agency autonomy from day-to-day partisan politics, while at the same time ensuring that it operates with some responsiveness to the popular will as expressed through elections.

“Members of the council and the chairman cannot be removed except for cause, which means that they are not fired if a new President is elected before their terms end. Nor can they be fired just because they make an unpopular grant award.”

Sabrin, though addressing another issue, has cogently stated why Bush’s action violates the spirit of the law. Frohnmayer was only 2 1/2 years into his four-year term. Because Bush had earlier and quite properly defended him, a for-cause dismissal was out of the question. Frohnmayer, a good soldier, agreed to resign. Had he not done so, he could have fought an outright dismissal in court; the law would have been on his side.

By this cave-in to the radical right, the President has broken the strong bipartisan coalition that he himself helped to build against the politicization of the NEA. The arts and his own reputation are equally ill-served.