Cultural Crossfire

Federal programs for the arts and humanities assaulted in Congress

By Stephen Burd

Washington, D.C. -- Conservative critics of the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities came out slugging last week. They said the two agencies were nothing more than "a playground for the cultural elite" and had "polluted" the nation.

The complaints themselves were not new, but the new political environment in this capital left many supporters of the arts and humanities more worried than ever before. Instead of coming from a few conservative Republicans, the attacks came