The National Endowment for the Arts seems to be politically free of trouble these days. “NEA Chairman Dana Gioia gives the NEA’s foes a challenge they’ve never encountered before: a cultural traditionalist running the agency. (Gioia is a poet who has written for publications such as the New Criterion.) ‘I don’t know how you create art unless you love the past.’ Many conservative regard Gioia as one of Bush’s finest appointments.”