While I was away, the White House did it again — made a stealth arts appointment. Actor Kal Penn (right), who served on candidate Obama’s arts-policy committee, is the new “associate director of public liaison” in the White House, focusing on Asian & Pacific communities and arts communities. The Washington Post had a gossip-column item on this earlier this month, crediting Entertainment Weekly, and yesterday I confirmed it with the White House press office. There’s been no announcement, and spokesman Shin Inouye said he did not know when Penn would start.
But, Inouye said, Penn will be doing “a little of everything.” As examples of the kinds of organizations Penn would liaise with, he cited the New England Federation for the Arts and the Southern Arts Federation. Plus, of course, the public.
When I previously wrote about the arts czar here, Kareem Dale was holding down a mini-version of the post as well as that of special assistant for disability policy. That, I’d been told, would be a temporary situation and a new appointment would be made. This is it. “Kal will be the primary point person to the arts communities,” Inouye said.
But Penn, 31, is also a bit of an odd choice. He’s been starring in “House” on TV and acting in “Harold & Kumar” and other low-brow movies. He has a BA from UCLA in sociology and film, Inouye said, as well as attendance at performing-arts high schools in New Jersey. As the Post reported here, Penn will be earning about $60,000 a year vs. about $50,000 an episode for “House,” where his character recently committed suicide.
Inouye described the liaison office as “the front door” to the White House for groups that want to have input on policy as well as the conduit to get information out. Doesn’t sound as if Penn will be the arts czar or even a mini-czar that arts groups had been seeking, let alone the kind of appointee who could broker deals on complex issues like copyright and media ownership that affect the arts.
Penn recently did an interview about the appointment with The New Republic, but he said little about how he feels about the arts or how he’ll handle the post. Here’s the link.