About that "overhead projector" ...

It's quite unusual for a nonprofit museum to get involved in partisan politics -- there's no way to avoid offending at least some prospective donors -- but the Adler Planetarium, in Chicago, which describes itself as the oldest in the Western hemisphere, felt the need to clear its name following Tuesday's presidential debate.

Senator McCain, you may recall, ridiculed Senator Obama for helping to secure $3 million in earmark money for an "overhead projector" for the planetarium.

The planetarium makes several points in a statement it released Wednesday [NB: it's a pdf, but only one page]:

1. The device Senator McCain referred to is the massive apparatus that projects stars onto the planetarium's screen. (The museum's present model is a 40-year-old "Zeiss Mark VI projector.") It bears little resemblance, in other words, to that device your eighth-grade teacher used to project equations onto a screen.

2. The planetarium has sought the help of numerous politicians in finding money to replace or upgrade its projector, because it believes scientific literacy is an issue of national importance and the present one is obsolete. But so far it has found no takers: There was no $3 million earmark, in other words.

3. The planetarium has, however, received lesser amounts of earmark money to support other projects, courtesy of Illinois politicians. But Senator Obama played no role in securing these, the museum says. "This is clearly evidenced," the statement concludes, "by recent transparency laws implemented by the Congress, which have resulted in the names of all requesting Members being listed next to every earmark in the reports that accompany appropriations bills."

Very interesting that a cultural institution would respond to a political attack -- not aimed at it per se -- in this fashion.

Via Steamboats Are Ruining Everything.