On the PBS Newshour Wednesday, they did a segment on Rocco Landesman, National Endowment for the Arts chair. You may remember that he made some disparaging remarks about Peoria, then visited Peoria last November. During the PBS news segment, there’s footage from his Peoria visit as well as his explanation/apology for the disparaging comments he had made earlier:

JEFFREY BROWN: You created a stir early on with the Peoria comment. And it sounded as though you were saying that money should go to places with proven merit, as opposed to the more traditional sort of distribution geographically. That’s the way it sounded.

ROCCO LANDESMAN: Well, Peoria was really a figure of speech. I’m a Broadway guy, and there is that great old Vaudeville expression, will it play in Peoria? I didn’t mean anything personal to Peoria. And what I was trying to say was really that art that’s going to be supported by the NEA is going to be on the basis of merit and quality, not just because it exists in a certain place. And we’re going to be wherever it is.

So there you have it: Peoria’s national reputation has been restored. Who could ask for anything more?