Thundercrack.

That should be the new code name for Obama’s “Stimulus” package since it’s clear by now that nothing remotely stimulating has occurred despite his gloom and doom threats (promises?) of so many months ago. And why was the Stimulus doomed from the start? Because when you open spigots of money, people are going to rush to fill their gullets. Especially the friendly folks at the NEA who have somehow managed to convince us that a nation like the United States would suddenly “run out of art” if it we stopped the federal dollars. Does anyone really believe that Sesame Street would go out of business if PBS stopped getting money from Uncle Sam? That Americans would not have anything to listen to on the radio without NPR?

Here’s the latest dispatch from the the wasteland:

The NEA was given $80 million of the government’s $787 billion economic stimulus bill to spread around to needy artists nationwide, and most of the money is being spent to help preserve jobs in museums, orchestras, theaters and dance troupes that have been hit hard by the recession.

But some of the NEA’s grants are spicing up more than the economy. A few of their more risque choices have some taxpayer advocates hot under the collar, including a $50,000 infusion for the Frameline film house, which recently screened Thundercrack, “the world’s only underground kinky art porno horror film, complete with four men, three women and a gorilla.”

“When you spend so much money in a short amount of time … you’re going to have nonsense like this, and that’s why the stimulus should never have been done in the first place,” said David Williams, vice president for policy at Citizens Against Government Waste.

Indeed, Mr. Williams.