Friday, March 7, 2008

George W. Bush, "Art Critic"

George W. Bush has a favorite painting, W.H.D. Koerner's A Charge to Keep (1916), and it hangs prominently in the Oval Office. He claims to have acquired it after becoming a born-again Christian. But the painting doesn't depict what he thinks it does. I try not to be overtly political on these here pages out of respect for my Conservative readers (I think there are two of you?), but I just can't let this delicious irony pass me by. Because W does what he always does when he has no clue: he pulls something out of his ass and presents it as fact, and even becomes so convinced of its veracity that he completely disregards all evidence to the contrary.

The ending is too funny to give away, so I'll let Jacob Weisberg deliver the punchline in the video below. Check out this article in Harper's for more. Thanks to Isaac for the heads up.

2 comments:

Meredith said...

Why would a conservative find this offensive?

Sarah said...

Maybe I should have said neo-cons. The ones who think the President should reject knowledge in case he might look too smart and lose his regular-guy, folksy appeal. Anyway, I'm glad it's not as controversial as I thought.