Quotations from Chairman Jim
January 6, 2012 — Scott Johnson
In “A nonquote from Chairman Jim” we noted that the voluble National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman Jim Leach has gone uncharacteristically silent. Asked for comment on the Illinois NEH affiliate’s offer of dinner for six with proud terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, Leach has declined to comment. Mona Charen has now devoted a good column to the offered dinner and Leach’s theme of “civility.” Like Thomas Lindsay, she
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January 3, 2012 — Scott Johnson
We’ve faithfully followed the pronouncements of the Obama administration’s National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman Jim Leach in our Quotations From Chairman Jim series. We have found the sayings of Chairman Jim to be lengthy, verbose, opaque, and pseudoliterate. Nevertheless, it is clear that civility of a certain kind — civility, Obama style, as Andrew Ferguson has called it — has been the theme of Leach’s speeches. Now, however, Thomas
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November 4, 2011 — Scott Johnson
Jim Leach is the Obama administration’s chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the subject of this long-running series. The NEH has now posted Leach’s keynote speech at the 2011 meeting of the National Academy of Education 2011 on October 28 at George Washington University. The speech is long, running more than five pages. Reading it through is not easy. Listening to it must have felt like a
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October 25, 2011 — Scott Johnson
Jim Leach is the Obama administration’s chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the subject of this long-running series. The NEH has now posted Leach’s remarks last week at the Digital Public Library of America Conference. In these remarks Leach touches in passing on the subject of illiteracy “in the citadels of academia” or, as I have called it in a previous installment of this series, educated illiteracy.
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September 20, 2011 — Scott Johnson
A perceptive eyewitness writes to report on the appearance of National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman Jim Leach last week at Bowdoin College and to make a special contribution to this series. Our correspondent writes: NEH Chairman Jim Leach visited Bowdoin College last week to meet with faculty who had received NEH grants and those who were applying for future grants to hear about their projects. Mr. Leach also spoke
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September 17, 2011 — Scott Johnson
We resume our series on National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman Jim Leach for what appears to be a preview of coming attractions. Leach has posted comments for the November Humanities Symposium to be held under the auspices of NYU’s Brademas Center in Florence. These, ladies and gentlemen, are the highlights selected by Chairman Jim himself: “The irony is that one of the oldest queries in education – the role
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July 30, 2011 — Scott Johnson
Andrew Ferguson has undertaken the difficult task of wading through the collected speeches of Obama administration NEH Chairman Jim Leach. Having done so myself, as Andy kindly observes, I can say with authority that he has suffered for his readers. The Weekly Standard has made Andy’s report the cover story of its new issue, out this morning. The appointment of Leach to the NEH represents the degradation of the arts
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June 26, 2011 — Scott Johnson
I’ve been following the tenure of National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman Jim Leach as he has undertaken a series of speeches seeking to spread the gospel according to Barack Obama. Shortly after his installation as chairman Leach commenced a 50-state “civility” tour preaching the gospel. Not even Bruce Springsteen has thought to pull off a 50-state tour, but then again Springsteen has to pay his own way. Like Springsteen,
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June 21, 2011 — Scott Johnson
Jim Leach is the former congressman who is the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. We’ve been following Leach’s tenure as he has undertaken a series of speeches seeking to spread the gospel according to Barack Obama. Shortly after his installation as chairman Leach undertook a 50-state tour preaching the gospel. The tour is in progress and the song remains the same. Most recently, we posted a week-long
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February 19, 2011 — Scott Johnson
In August Leach’s 50-state tour also took him to Colorado, where he gave another speech and posted a column instructing the opponents of President Obama on their incivility. The peasants were revolting, and Leach was none too pleased about it. Leach observed: “Citizens are increasingly losing confidence in the institutions of our nation, particularly government, and are becoming disrespectful of their leaders, other faith systems and each other.” What “faith
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February 18, 2011 — Scott Johnson
So Leach has undertaken a 50-state tour as chairman of the NEH to instruct Americans in the virtues of civility. Yet while instructing his audiences in the virtues of civility Leach provides instruction of another kind. He shows how the advocacy of civility can be used as a political tool to disparage your political opponents and invite them to stifle themselves. Leach was at it again in his April 2010
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February 17, 2011 — Scott Johnson
In May 2010 Leach gave a speech in Philadelphia to the American Council of Learned Societies. He titled the speech “Jurisprudence and the humanities.” He returned to the themes of his earlier speeches and took a walk down memory lane, recalling another speech he gave to the council four years ago. He quoted himself: Would it have been helpful for the leader of the free world to have read Greek
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February 16, 2011 — Scott Johnson
Leach has made himself something of a schoolmarm, both pompous and insipid, while continuing to curry favor with the Obama administration. Leach returned to the themes of his “Bridging cultures” speech in “The tension between speaking and listening” in February 2010 at Wayne State University Law School. In the speech Leach opined at Castroite length on politics, civility, the Supreme Court, and just about everything but the humanities. Unlike any
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February 15, 2011 — Scott Johnson
What does Leach have to say in his speeches? In his September 2009 speech “Bridging cultures: NEH and the Muslim world,” Leach explained his support for Obama during the campaign: “[O]n a personal note, I chose as a Republican to endorse Barack Obama for President because I was convinced that never in American history was the case for a course change more compelling in international relations and because I had
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February 14, 2011 — Scott Johnson
Something strange has happened to the National Endowment for the Humanities in the Age of Obama, and what has happened signifies something important about the age. Yet few seem to be paying attention. The lack of interest is understandable; it too signifies something important about the age. Among the enormities inflicted on the nation by the Obama administration, the degradation of the NEH is small potatoes. Obama made his mark
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