Nobody comes off well in the dispute over Raleigh’s downtown art.

• Would-be benefactor Jim Goodmon looks high-handed and arrogant.

• Mayor Charles Meeker gets blasted by Goodmon: “He followed the herd.”

• City Manager Russell Allen started the brouhaha, but couldn’t – or wouldn’t – stop it.

• Arts lovers sound elitist and condescending.

• The people of Raleigh – we are led to believe – are a bunch of uncultured boobs who don’t deserve visionary public art.

Somebody – or several somebodies – needs a reality check here.

First, don’t blame the public.

Fact is, the taxpayers of Raleigh – and all North Carolina, for that matter – put up a lot of money for an Art Museum and other arts programs.

But here is the political fact of life: People here are mad about taxes and spending and about to vote on a nearly $1 billion school bond issue. It’s not the right time to send them an ill-defined bill for an ill-defined art project they can’t visualize.

Leaders – which Meeker and Goodmon are supposed to be – ought to be able to solve this. It is revealing that neither has been able to.

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