Tripping along in my leisurely reading of Guy Davenport’s Geography of the Imagination (which, by the way, is mostly about poets and other artsy rapscallions), I came upon this marvelous bit of invective:

True, it was a year in which the country had to turn out a pack of scoundrels, porch climbers, thieves, bullies, liars, and bores from the Executive Branch of the government, a year in which the sludge of usury which forms the basis of our economy began to slither and lurch, a year indistinguishable from any other in the national contempt for the arts. (pg 273)

(Davenport refers to 1974, but…)