Janos Gereben wrote:

>New attorney general may investigate opera monopoly on federal subsidy,
>protect country music poor boys
>
>"I tend not to be an individual who has invested a great deal of my life
>in opera," Sen. John Ashcroft told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in a 1997
>intereview, noting that his musical tastes run to gospel and country.
>
>"Now the opera gets a subsidy from the National Endowment for the Arts,
>but, by and large, Willie Nelson and Garth Brooks don't. Those of us who
>drive our pickups to those concerts don't get a subsidy, but the people
>who drive their Mercedes to the opera get a subsidy."

Tbis will be amusing to watch if it comes out in the hearings.  The
Democrats siding with the opera-loving Mercedes millionaires in their
opposition to Ashcroft's nomination.

I wonder what operas Ashcroft has seen.  He implies in his statement that
he might have spent at least some small part of his life in the opera
house.

John Dalmas
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