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The case for naming a U.S. secretary of Culture - latimes.com Page 3 of 3 courts controversy ever going to become a national spokesperson, to say nothing of a Washington official? Sellars, however, happens to be one of the most persuasive and inspirational public figures we have. He exhibits a bottomless empathy and spirituality with broad reach. Yes, some of his productions have been left-leaning, but he can, one on one, reach just about everyone. He is politically motivated and sophisticated. He thinks profoundly about social issues. He also has a way with politicians. A few years ago he was asked to speak at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, about nuclear proliferation — something he became highly knowledgeable about when he and composer John Adams put on “Doctor Atomic,” an opera about the creation of the atomic bomb. Sellars held heads of state in awe. My second nomination is Leon Botstein, president of Bard College in New York state. He is one of our few remaining public intellectuals and a renaissance man, which means he is a conductor, educator and scholar. He too is unusually persuasive when speaking on any number of issues to any kind of audience. Yes, he's also a liberal, one who as a young man could hold his brilliant own against William F. Buckley on "Firing Line." But he is just as brilliant an administrator who, in his nearly 40-year tenure at Bard, has made the school into one of the most progressive and prominent humanities colleges in the country by appealing to donors on all sides of the political spectrum. He's an egghead who goes on "The Colbert Report." Botstein makes things happen, and he makes them happen by persuading people to look beyond their preconceptions, to view society in broad and grand terms. He is someone politicians and the people could listen to. So what is the likelihood that Obama will announce on the steps of the Capitol on Monday that over these next four years he wants to make the arts a national priority and for that reason he is now nominating Sellars or Botstein to the newly created post of secretary of Culture? Zero. He's not crazy. Still, if Albania can have one, why can't we? murk sweda@latimes.com MORE INTERACTIVE: Christopher Depictions of violence in PHOTOS: Arts and culture in Hawthorne's On the Boulevards theater and more pictures Copyright © 2013, Los Angeles Times http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-secretary-of-culture-notebook... 3/27/2013 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_026600