Obama and the Arts | Newsweek Culture

Underqualified for the Overrated
Christopher Hitchens 10/10/2009 12:00:00 AM
Alfred Nobel had one odd thing in common with Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway and Marcus Garvey. He had the chance to read about his own death in the newspapers. It seems that he was so depressed by the emphasis that the obituarists laid on his pioneering work on dynamite—the WMD of its day—that he resolved at once to upgrade his real death notice by endowing an award for international peace.
President of Planet Earth
Howard Fineman 10/10/2009 12:00:00 AM
In the rose garden last Friday, Barack Obama, with a deep sense of humility and in the name of all mankind, reluctantly accepted the Nobel Peace Prize committee's decision proclaiming him president of planet Earth. He will be sworn in at a glittering ceremony in Oslo in December. In the meantime, Obama has decided to retain the title and the powers of president of the United States, commander in chief of land, sea, and air forces, and team captain of pickup games behind the South Portico. (Click here to follow Howard Fineman)
An Inconvenient Truth Teller
Holly Bailey 10/10/2009 12:00:00 AM
Joe Biden had a question. During a long Sunday meeting with President Obama and top national-security advisers on Sept. 13, the VP interjected, "Can I just clarify a factual point? How much will we spend this year on Afghanistan?" Someone provided the figure: $65 billion. "And how much will we spend on Pakistan?" Another figure was supplied: $2.25 billion. "Well, by my calculations that's a 30-to-1 ratio in favor of Afghanistan. So I have a question. Al Qaeda is almost all in Pakistan, and Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And yet for every dollar we're spending in Pakistan, we're spending $30 in Afghanistan. Does that make strategic sense?" The White House Situation Room fell silent. But the questions had their desired effect: those gathered began putting more thought into Pakistan as the key theater in the region.
ARTS
No Culture Czar
Seth Colter Walls 2/5/2009 12:00:00 AM
Should President Barack Obama create a cabinet-level post for an arts administrator? Music producer Quincy Jones has promised to beg the new president to create a "Secretary of Arts" the next time they speak, while an online petition to similar effect currently claims more than 200,000 signatories. But John Adams, one of America's most-performed living composers ("Nixon in China," "Doctor Atomic"), says he isn't so sure. He spoke with NEWSWEEK's Seth Colter Walls. Excerpts:
Brains Are Back!
Michael Hirsh 11/7/2008 12:00:00 AM
For two days now, Americans have celebrated the idea that we may have finally atoned for our nation's original sin, slavery, along with its long legacy of racism. We can rejoice in the world's accolades over the election of a multicultural African-American to the presidency after nearly eight years of cringing in shame as the Bush administration methodically curdled our Constitutional values and sullied our global reputation as a beacon of hope. Every once in a while, it seems, we Americans do manage to live up to our ideals rather than betray them. Hooray!
THE LAST WORD
The Final Repudiation
George F. Will
In a Presidential contest replete with novelties, none was more significant than this: A candidate's campaign—for his party's nomination, then for the presidency—was itself virtually the entire validation of his candidacy. Voters have endorsed Barack Obama's audacious—but not, they have said, presumptuous—proposition, which was: The skill, tenacity, strategic vision and tactical nimbleness of my campaign is proof that I am presidential timber.