Garling Gauge

President Bush Misinterprets Favorite Painting

A Charge to Misinterpret

We all know that the president has, well, misinterpreted some events and symbolism from time to time. But if you thought he was merely a stubborn war monger with a myopic perspective on the consequences associated with American policies, you’ve ‘misunderestimated‘ him!

Take for example Bush’s favorite painting. While he has several hanging in the Oval Office, one in particular suits his fancy. From Salon:

“Each president can put whatever paintings he wants on the wall. I’ve chosen some paintings that kind of reflect my nature,” Bush says in his video tour. He points to portraits of Abraham Lincoln (”The job of the president is to set big goals for the country”) and George Washington (”You couldn’t have the Oval Office without George Washington on the wall”) and pats busts of Lincoln (”You can tell he’s one of my favorites”), Dwight Eisenhower (”steady”) and Winston Churchill (”gift of the British prime minister … Churchill was a war leader … resolute, tough”)…

Bush takes special pride in pointing out two paintings he has hung that highlight his motives and legacy. He consciously placed these pictures in the Oval Office at the beginning of his tenure to serve as prescient cultural markers. “The Texas paintings are on the wall because that’s where I’m from and where I’m going,” he says.

One of them, by little-known painter and illustrator William Henry Dethlef Koerner, titled “A Charge to Keep,” depicts a hatless cowboy followed by two other riders galloping up a hill. Their faces are intent as they pursue some quarry in the distance that cannot be seen by others. Or are they being chased? “I love it,” Bush said, further explaining his intimate feeling for the painting to reporters and editors of the Washington Times, a conservative newspaper. He offered his interpretation: “He’s a determined horseman, a very difficult trail. And you know at least two people are following him, and maybe a thousand.” Bush added that the painting is “based” on an old hymn. “And the hymn talks about serving the Almighty. So it speaks to me personally.” When he was governor of Texas and the painting hung in his office, Bush wrote a note of explanation to his staff: “This is us.”

Now it’s fair to say that artwork can be interpreted however anyone chooses. Show a child Guernica, for example, and you’ll get all kinds of interpretations.

Yet, you would think that a painting hanging in the Oval Office would have a bit more vetting.

From Slate:

According to The Bush Tragedy, a new book by Slate’s Jacob Weisberg, Bush suffers from a similar inability to distinguish between what he wants to see and what is there to be seen…

He [Bush] came to believe that the picture depicted the circuit-riders who spread Methodism across the Alleghenies in the nineteenth century. In other words, the cowboy who looked like Bush was a missionary of his own denomination.

Only that is not the title, message, or meaning of the painting. The artist, W.H.D. Koerner, executed it to illustrate a Western short story entitled “The Slipper Tongue,” published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1916. The story is about a smooth-talking horse thief who is caught, and then escapes a lynch mob in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. The illustration depicts the thief fleeing his captors. In the magazine, the illustration bears the caption: “Had His Start Been Fifteen Minutes Longer He Would Not Have Been Caught.”

The painting was subsequently recycled by the Saturday Evening Post to illustrate a nonfiction story. The caption that time was, “Bandits Move About From Town to Town, Pillaging Whatever They Can Find.”

Perhaps “Bandits Move About From Town to Town, Pillaging Whatever They Can Find” could also be used as a name for Bush’s foreign policy. Perhaps a rename for the Neocons? He supports recycling, doesn’t he?

For a man who prides himself on the symbolic nature of his presidency, the ironic symbolism of President Bush’s favorite painting depicting a smooth talking thief who is caught and escapes a lynch mob is almost too much for me. Perhaps it was the inspiration for Scooter Libby’s felony conviction and pardon. If so, then Bush should have stuck with his chosen title: A Charge to Keep.

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