Professor Beck appears to be displaying his ignorance of facts yet again, but I think he’s deliberately lying to his audience, many of whom appear to be either incapable, or just too disinterested to ever check his facts. Thankfully, we have the hard working folks at Media Matters who look out for the rest of us.

“And Then You Have The Tax Dollars Funding This Wonderful Art Display. It’s Christmas At The Smithsonian.” The Professor claimed during his FOX PAC show on 30 Nov 10 of an exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, which is titled “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture.”

“And then you have the tax dollars funding this wonderful art display. It’s Christmas at the Smithsonian. Here’s this wonderful — oh, look, it’s Jesus with ants on him. They describe it as the first major exhibition to focus on the sexual difference in the making of modern American portraiture,” Beckster continued.

Now for the reality check. Ready? The Smithsonian Institution “Receives Public Funds” But “Does Not Use That Money for Exhibitions.” The Washington Post reported that the exhibition, which opened Oct. 30, which cost $750,000, was funded by the largest number of individual donors for a Portrait Gallery show.

“As part of the Smithsonian, the gallery receives public funds. Overall, the Smithsonian gets about 70 percent of its annual budget from the federal government, but it does not use that money for exhibitions.” [The Washington Post, 11/30/10]

Earth to Beck and his Kool-Aid drinking followers; while the Smithsonian receives “about 70 percent of its annual budget from the federal government” … “it does not use that money for exhibition.”

Clear enough?

Probably not; but, hey, we tried.

The Smithsonian doesn’t use government funding for exhibitions because it doesn’t want the prigs in the GOP controlled House to dictate what is and what is not fit to be shown in the national gallery. That would be called censorship Herr Beck.