That's the news today, I guess (WaPo here). I'm interested to see who the replacement is, but not exactly edge-of-my-seat excited. After all, Kalpen Modi got us the 9/11 arts day of service, and... yeah. That's it.
Not that I'm complaining, since health care reform is the best thing artists have gotten for a while, but... I highly doubt that the next arts liason (if they bother to have one) is going to really shake the boat.
Also, I have him to thank for more flame mail than I've ever received in my life. So there's that.
And thinking about Kalpen Modi got me thinking about Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN, who was going to be the Surgeon General. Remember that? God only knows why he backed out -- probably his cozy relationship at CNN with pharmaceutical advertisers -- but I watched CNN during the Health Care Vote (sorry, I was on Jet Blue, that's all I could do) and basically, all of the CNN team was largely deferring to Sanjay Gupta who was fielding all of the questions about the health care bill's content. In a way, he basically fulfilled his public-relations role, except without being paid, and only on CNN. Which is a good bet, because it turns out that when important things are going on, that's really where we're looking.
