Could the art of George W. Bush wherein he depicts world leaders in sophomoric renderings that read more “quaint cute” as in the eagerly water colored masterpieces a child shoves at a parent for admiration on their office wall, rather than a trove of Picasso’s best, be more about politics than hobby-making?
Now that we are several years away from the Bush era of rule in this country, much has been made in the last few to “paint” Dubya not as a war-mongering cowboy, and epic failure of a world leader, but as a soft-spoken man who may have been misunderstood in his political assertions. Not about his convictions per se, but about the amount of caring for his fellow man that went sorely unnoticed.
Bush has wanted to couch all of this “misconception” in his affinity for the Hispanic community, for young children, for the humanitarian aid he’s assisted with recently including working on projects that help save the lives of Africans with AIDS and helping the nation’s veterans find jobs, in addition to discussing his “good” and “reciprocal” relationships with leaders like Nelson Mandela. And wrapped in this cloak of misunderstanding, at least as he’d want you to think, is this kinder, gentler George W. Bush, the middle-aged painter. This guy who you’d find in a garage or a spare room of the house donning paint smudged overalls and smelling of turpentine with paint flecks in his increasingly grey hair. Non-threatening. Non-politic. Beyond reproach. Yes, this is old grandpa George, retired and finally able to get back to that hobby he had to abandon — or never got the chance to start — because of the aforementioned war mongering.
Yes, this whole painting thing could be seen as an easy way to resell and repackage Bush to this nation. He’s not really a monster, how could he be? Didn’t you see the self-portrait of himself in the bathtub (such laughs! so embarrassing), or how he made Putin look like a pursed-mouthed, sour-faced combination of Bush senior and Prince Charles? Oh, look how sweet and amateur it is, yet he’s going to put all his little art works in his Dallas museum for the middle America set to come visit. Say cheese! Wave to Putin’s constipated face! Maybe there will even be t-shirts and corn dogs sold at the opening. We’ll totally forget about the Iraq war and all that other nonsense; Katrina, economic ruin, because really, who wants to focus on that, and besides we want Jeb to feel comfortable with his family’s legacy — comfortable enough to take America’s pulse and stick a toe in to see how we respond, eh?
Ah. Yes, Jeb. “Has there been enough time? Have enough people gotten over ‘The Bush Years?'” If America can somehow find its way to humanizing Dubya — even if that means patting him on the back for painting a nice, albeit unsolicited, picture of the family dog chasing a ball at sunset, or capturing Putin’s “soul” at the height of the U.S.’s most recent standoff with the controversial leader, then we could conceivably get around to thinking about another Bush taking a shot at the oval office.
If the Bushes could just find a way to tap into that thing Americans have that allows us to forgive bad-acting Hollywood actors, carousing U.S. presidents, and politicians who like to show their dongs for sport, then assuredly we can do a “mental erase” and elect another Bush to office — and look back on Dubya’s years as a blip, a small footnote in an otherwise blightless political dynasty. After all, as CNN reports, “Americans have begun to see him [George W.] in a better light. Forty nine percent viewed him favorably while 46% saw him unfavorably according to a poll last June from Gallup. When Bush left office in 2009, only 40% of Americans held a favorable opinion of him, a number which sunk to 35% in March of that year before beginning a slow climb out from under water. ”
Could selling Dubya as the Norman Rockwell of presidential redemption be the key to clearing away a littered path? In the three days since the unveiling of George W. Bush’s artwork, Jeb is now talking strategy if he were to run for president.
