Barack "Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar"

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

We Know Art Works: Rocco Landesman Addresses Grantmakers in the Arts

[Rocco Landesman is President Obama's handpicked chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.]

October 21, 2009

Brooklyn, NY

*****

I’m a theatrical producer. Fewer than 20% of the shows that open on Broadway earn back their investment, it is an absolutely terrible business and the people who invest in it know that. So why do they do it? Because they’re optimistic.

Which brings me to President Obama, our Optimist in Chief. He is a writer, an artist but we’ll come to that later. His second book had a title that would resonate with Lionel Tiger: “The Audacity of Hope”. This is much more than a felicitous phrase that he found in a sermon: it is the manifesto of this presidency and will lay the groundwork for the most arts-supportive administration since Roosevelt.

*****

My answer is pretty simple. There is a new president and a new NEA. The president first. This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln. If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar.

*****

http://www.arts.gov/artworks/?p=13

[cdneh 3,112]

We Know Art Works: Rocco Landesman Addresses Grantmakers in the Arts

[Rocco Landesman is President Obama's handpicked chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.]

October 21, 2009

Brooklyn, NY

*****

I’m a theatrical producer. Fewer than 20% of the shows that open on Broadway earn back their investment, it is an absolutely terrible business and the people who invest in it know that. So why do they do it? Because they’re optimistic.

Which brings me to President Obama, our Optimist in Chief. He is a writer, an artist but we’ll come to that later. His second book had a title that would resonate with Lionel Tiger: “The Audacity of Hope”. This is much more than a felicitous phrase that he found in a sermon: it is the manifesto of this presidency and will lay the groundwork for the most arts-supportive administration since Roosevelt.

*****

My answer is pretty simple. There is a new president and a new NEA. The president first. This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln. If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar.

*****

http://www.arts.gov/artworks/?p=13

Ummm..let me think. NOT

[scandal 951]

Ummm..let me think. NOT

Oh, I completely agree.

Obama writes much better than Lincoln.

Gettysburg Address? Puhleez.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Ummm..let me think. NOT

Oh, I completely agree.

Obama writes much better than Lincoln.

Gettysburg Address? Puhleez.

Lincoln was no Douglas, that is for sure.

[DeadPoolX 9]

Interesting comparison, especially considering how Caesar's reign ended...

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Interesting comparison, especially considering how Caesar's reign ended...

"Oh no! Nancy's gotta knife!"

[justashooter 430]

what #######. i've read roosevelt. compare "screams of audacity" to the sagamore papers and you will understand that there is no comparison. look at the difference in vocabulary, style, and content. osama writes like a gradeschooler. he writes about himself and his struggles, and how he would lie the world to be (mein kampf).

roosevelt wrote about himself and his succesful ventures in books from Tales Of A Ranch Hand to his African Game Trails. he wrote on matters of state and his efforts to make America into what osama is tearing down. look for the national parks system to come under osama's gun next. roosevelt created it when he was sec interior.

roosevelt wrote histories of NY city, the war of 1812 and the english navy, biographies of earlier governors, oliver cromwell, etc. he even wrote about women's issues and their changing place in an industrialised society. he was a man who could see his place in history and society.