New NEH Chairman Takes Aim at the Cultural Wars

Former-Congressman Jim Leach is now chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Watching the changing of the guard at the NEH, conservative analysts raise just one concern. "One of the unstated victories of the Bush administration is that they took the politics and hot-button nature out of the NEH," says Michael Franc, the Heritage Foundation's vice president for government relations. "Since then, they seemed to be promoting great poems, great literature. There is a challenge for Mr. Leach . . . not to let the agency become politicized." Leach has a concern, too, and it cuts across liberal-moderate-conservative fault lines. In this era of Internet blasts and ornery town-hall meetings, Leach wants to buck what he considers one of the 21st century's most insidious trends: the end of civility. It's something he's been harping on since the mid-1990s. "I am appalled by the notion of cultural wars. We used to address ourselves as a melting pot, and diversity is a wonderful thing, but common objectives are also good," he says. For an advocate of tempered talk, the summer's brawls at the town halls on health care were unfortunate. "A little vibrancy of debate is reasonable," says Leach. "But I am amazed at how little attention is brought to words. We have a president who has been called a socialist, a communist, a fascist. And then I've heard the word 'secession.' "