I remember former Interior Secretary James Watt well: he was the most embarrassing Reagan appointee, a far right religious fanatic who was incapable of knowing when to keep his faith out his duties, or when to shut up. When he accused the Beach Boys of being poor representatives of the U.S. in the July 4th celebration on the Mall and recommended Wayne Newton as a replacement, I realized he was the kind of reactionary extremist that gave conservatives a bad name, and that he was so estranged from the U.S. culture that he wouldn’t last. He didn’t.
But the New York Times obituary demonstrates how even wackos in the throes of paranoia about progressives can prove prophetic, and how the current extremist Left—like the Times—can’t perceive the problems with their own obsessions.
Ann’s readers manage to touch on anything else I could say. You’ll enjoy their analysis.
Ethics Alarms 
The link to Ann just leads to the NYT article, sorry.
Don’t be sorry. It’s fixed.
Ah yes – I certainly remember when James Watt said The Beach Boys were offensive. They then essentially told him to rectally insert it and moved the free 4th of July concert to Philly instead, which I attended, being of the “wrong element”. They went on to play such filthy and harmful songs as, “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “Don’t Worry Baby.” Appalling.
Plus “Help Me Rhonda” and “Sloop John B.” Even Spiro Agnew couldn’t find fault with the Beach Boys.
I had a personal experience related to the removal of The Beach Boys from the annual 4th of July performance on the mall. At the time I was employed driving a taxi in Northern Virginia. A couple of months after the first time The Beach Boys didn’t perform on the mall, a man in a tuxedo flagged me down in Crystal City in Arlington VA. He asked me about the fare to a location in NW Washington DC. He then paid me and put a young woman in my cab. The woman was bubbling with excitement. She explained that the man who had stopped me was Mike Love of The Beach Boys. It turned out that The Beach Boys had played a concert at the White House earlier that evening. As it happened, there was a long scheduled event in honor of the Special Olympics at the White House that evening. The young lady in my taxi was a staffer for Ted Kennedy. The Kennedy’s had long been associated with the Special Olympics ( Ted’s sister Eunice Shriver was the founder). So as a poke in the eye of the Reagan White House, the Kennedy’s brought The Beach Boys to perform at the White House after the Reagan administration had cancelled their performance on the National Mall. I was amused. Accounts of the incident appeared in various media which confirmed my passenger’s story.