On one side were such conservative heavyweights as Vice President Dan Quayle, columnist William Buckley and Lynne Cheney, chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Lined up in opposition was an imposing array of scholarly dreadnoughts, including the Modern Language Association of America and the American Council of Learned Societies. At issue was the nomination of Carol Iannone, 43, a conservative literary critic, to the NEH's 26-member National Council, which advises the endowment on spending its budget (for 1992: $170 million).
Score one for the politically correct. After an intense debate last week, the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee...