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June 24, 2007
Politicizing The Smithsonian
Richard N. Weltz
Inasmuch as the Smithsonian Institution is a quasi-governmental organization, largely funded by taxpayer money, it seems to me that the magazine it publishes, Smithsonian, ought to be strictly apolitical. That is why I was concerned and dismayed that its editors saw fit to run, as a lead article in the current issue (July 2007, page 19) a piece by Armistead Maupin about the city of San Francisco which included this partisan screed right in its second paragraph: And we've been right about things. Sorry, but it has to be said: we've been right about things for a very long time. Wacky, godless, treasonous San Francisco, standing alone in its madness, spoke out about global warming and the war in Iraq and George W. Bush long before the rest of America finally woke up to the truth. So those dreaded "San Francisco values"—tolerance, compassion and peace—aren't sounding quite so flaky in a country disillusioned by Abu Ghraib and Hurricane Katrina.
This seems to me to be entirely outrageous.
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