Lew’s post about the poet Sharon Olds is interesting, and one wishes that this would occur on a regular basis. Now, my guess is that Olds, if she is like most literary people in this country, is politically on the left, so turning down an invitation to the White House most likely costs her nothing, and probably increases her stature with her peers.

As I was re-reading Jim Bovard’s book “Feeling Your Pain,” which documents the many abuses of the Clinton Administration, I wonder how many literary people refused to visit the Clinton White House when he was setting the IRS against political opponents, murdering innocents in Serbia, and defending — indeed, praising — the FBI after it had inflicted the worst massacre upon individuals in this country since Wounded Knee more than a century ago. Indeed, during the Lewinsky scandal, people in Hollywood were praising the president for demonstrating (as one supporter put it) that he was active “from the waist down.”

I say this because people of all stripes are all-too-happy to enjoy the trappings of a White House visit — when their person is in the White House. Thus, evangelicals were “honored” to be seen at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue at a time when the Bush Department of Justice has regularly broken the law in the prosecution of “crimes.” (For starters, the number two man at the DOJ, James Comey, committed at least one felony of which we know in the prosecution of Martha Stewart.)Unfortunately, it is almost impossible for political supporters of whomever occupies the White House to acknowledge the monstrous (to use one of Murray Rothbard’s favorite terms) actions of those in charge. In fact, I would say that most people do not care. As Bovard writes in “Feeling Your Pain,” the White House press corp broke into applause after Clinton arrogantly defended the government’s role at Waco. Furthermore, the mainstream press actively helped to suppress the truth about that whole sorry episode.

When James Dobson and other evangelicals have visited the White House, I doubt any of them expressed alarm at the government’s slaughter of innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan, nor did they feel any need to question any of the other actions that this administration has taken out that are murderous and wrong.

So, Ms. Olds, I am sure that your refusal cost you nothing, but I am waiting to see what you and your peers do when someone of your political persuasion occupies the White House. Somehow, I doubt that you will be willing to stand up for what is right.