This is sort of old news by now, but — as of June 1st – Kal Penn (of Harold and Kumar, House M.D., and The Namesake) has officially resigned his position at the White House as Associate Director in the Office of Public Engagement and liaison to the Asian American community. Penn accepted the position when Obama took office knowing that he was committed to filming the next installment of Harold and Kumar later this year.
The Asian American community is losing a passionate voice in the White House with Penn’s departure, but I’m glad that Penn took time from Hollywood to perform this public service. I look forward to finding out who will replace Penn in the Obama Administration.
Incidentally, CNN’s political ticker article highlighting Penn’s resignation really rubbed me the wrong way. It seems like it was written and researched based on Penn’s Wikipedia article. There isn’t a single mention of the phrase “Asian American” in the article, yet an entire (albeit short) paragraph is dedicated to Penn being mugged earlier this year.
Talk about lazy reporting.
Not to knock the movement or anything, but did he ever *do* anything for the administration? I mean, I’m sure there are things that go on, about which we’ll never know, but his whole appointment just seemed to be a gesture to appease the Asian-American community – part of the “Everyone’s Invited To the Obama Table” movement that swept through politics. That said, I don’t know of anything Kal achieved in his role. As far as local DC news was concerned, his mugging was the most noteworthy thing in which he was involved (which, actually, took place after he had already announced he was leaving his post…to go film Harold & Kumar 3). I hope you can forgive my snarky tone, and perhaps tell me where I can learn more about what this appointment actually achieved, for both Asian-Americans, as well as politics as a whole.
Hey Will,
Actually, Kal Penn was really active in his role as liaison to the APIA community. I don’t have a website or something, but I was constantly getting press releases from Penn telling me about initiatives from the White House geared at the APIA community, particularly phone town halls and seminar series. And that was kind of his job — to keep our community informed about what was going on in the White House in relation to APIAs.
^– okay, I re-read that comment — that wasn’t supposed to come out like Kal Penn’s my buddy or something. I was just one email address in his rolodex.
I blame lazy reporting on the fad of social networking.