Kennedy Center to support art by suing artist. It's not political. Really.

So NPR reports that the Kennedy Center says it’s going to sue Chuck Reed for $1 million for cancelling his annual Christmas Eve Jazz Jam. Reed cancelled the show after the Orange Overlord’s hand-chosen board stuck his name on the Center even though it’s not theirs to rename, as the name was set in the founding Congressional legislation.

(BTW, all praise to NPR for consistently referring to it as "the Kennedy Center," not the "Trump-Kennedy Center.")

Sounding like a petulant 6-year-old screeching “You’re mean!” Center rep Roma Daravi called Reed “selfish” and “intolerant” and as having “failed to meet [his] basic duty” as an artist, which apparently is performing when and where Daravi wants him to.

For his part, Center President Richard Grenell sniveled quite non-politically that the cancellation was a political stunt in a way that renaming the Center obviously was not. He called it an example of “sad bullying by certain elements on the left,” and pouting that it’s all happening because “the Left is mad” that the Orange Overlord “is supporting the arts” in some no doubt special and impressive yet invisible manner. The Arts are indeed magic.

Grenell said “we will not let them” - we can assume he means those “elements of the Left” - “cancel shows without consequences.” The Center says the suit will come after the holidays.

Interestingly, no basis for the suit was mentioned and it doesn’t appear that any suits were filed against other artists - including Issa Rae, Rhiannon Giddens, Peter Wolf, Low Cut Connie, the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC, and the production company of “Hamilton” - who previously canceled appearances in protest over the name change. Apparently, this one hurt their fee-fees more than usual.

Footnote: In late November, Democrats on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works announced an investigation into “cronyism [and] corruption” involving “millions in lost revenue, luxury spending, and preferential treatment for Trump allies.” The investigation is being undertaken at a time of, NPR reports, “declining audiences, artist cancellations, layoffs and resignations at the Kennedy Center.”