Sorry for the excessive hyperbole, but I had to counter the sniveling sycophancy in this Fox News puff piece.
They’re impressed that it took “only a month” to teach him to paint like that? It shows. He’s going to go down in history as a great artist? Judging by what is shown in that clip, this is a retired guy with a nice hobby. That’s about it. Good for him — at least he’s not ripping the hearts out of virgins and kicking puppies for a hobby like Dick Cheney — but come on, American Pravda, let’s not lay it on quite so thickly.
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ChasCPeterson
8 March 2013 at 10:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
This is a local Atlanta affiliate of the Fox TV Network. That’s not the same as Fox News, the cable propaganda network.
Gregory in Seattle
8 March 2013 at 10:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
A whole month to learn paint-by-number.
Color me unimpressed; use paint cup #4.
brazenlucidity
8 March 2013 at 10:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
About what I’d expect from my intro to painting students assuming they hadn’t had any training in high school, etc.
robro
8 March 2013 at 10:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Chas — Different, and yet the same.
laurie
8 March 2013 at 10:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Why does he sign 43, and not his name?
He doesn’t want to destroy the value.
lb
8 March 2013 at 10:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Very typical of a Sunday painter and not even as good as first year art students. Yawn.
thewoodguy
8 March 2013 at 11:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Surprisingly, all Bill Clinton could muster in retirement was to start a global foundation to help explore solutions to poverty and disease. What a slacker.
abelundercity
8 March 2013 at 11:06 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If it keeps him out of trouble and our collective hair, I’m all for it.
zibble
8 March 2013 at 11:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Seeing pictures of his art show at the White House was infuriating – everyone from the news networks to the Obamas was there, applauding, acting in the conspiracy to inflate this selfish, prickish, over-privileged war-criminal fuckwit’s already-overblown-ego as he treats the fucking White House, the central symbol of our democracy that he bought with lies and his father’s money and then still had to steal anyway, like a god-damn fridge for his fucking macaroni art.
This grown-ass-fucking man – by which I mean the spoiled, useless little rich turd of a brat that lives where a man should be, this parasitic leech with delusions of greatness; this symbol of everything that is wrong with America, the ignorance, the selfishness, the narcissistic religiosity, the disregard if not contempt for others, the inequalities of wealth and race and the privilege and ego that goes along with it; to wit, this shit – still, after everything he’s done, commands the power and the guise of respect to be insulated from the idea that he has ever failed at anything, when he has actually failed at everything, including, especially, being anything close to a worthwhile human being.
God fucking damn it.
unalienablebytes
8 March 2013 at 11:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Barf me me out and gag me with a spoon.
chigau (違う)
8 March 2013 at 11:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
zibble
yup
Martin Wagner
8 March 2013 at 11:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
There’s something kind of childishly sweet about him enjoying painting puppies, and if it makes him happy, more power to him. It does, however, illustrate rather sharply that he wasn’t exactly the sort of man you want running your freaking country.
rowanvt
9 March 2013 at 12:18 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Watched it with sound off. Not impressed. I haven’t had any art classes beyond the stuff they teach in grade school and I draw better than that. I kept itching to reach up with my pencil and fix the anatomy on that dog painting… and give it feet.
I’m glad he has a hobby he enjoys, but how the hell is this newsworthy???
Goodbye Enemy Janine
9 March 2013 at 12:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Why do I feel the urge to throw a shoe at one of his paintings?
chigau (just call me chigau)
9 March 2013 at 12:31 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Janine
If you coat the shoe with … something.
You’ll have a performance art piece.
toro
9 March 2013 at 2:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh, I like this one. One dog goes one way, the other dog goes the other way, and this guy’s sayin’, “Whaddaya want from me?”
marilove
9 March 2013 at 3:24 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I kind of liked his self portraits, actually, but I admit I have terrible taste and I also can’t paint so what the fuck do I know.
sundiver
9 March 2013 at 3:46 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
One little quibble, Hitler was a painter first, war-criminal second. Shrub was just the opposite.
laurentweppe
9 March 2013 at 4:17 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Huh? What? Do you think he would have been less likely to start the Irak War if he had been a stamp collector instead?
smutclyde
9 March 2013 at 4:38 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You know who else was a great painter?
Winston Churchill??
Rich Woods
9 March 2013 at 4:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Churchill also had the advantage of being able to string a sentence togther. And hold his booze.
Rich Woods
9 March 2013 at 4:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Together. Gah.
jimatkins
9 March 2013 at 4:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“Hitler! Now there was a painter! An entire apartment, one afternoon, two coats!”
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)
9 March 2013 at 5:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
One of my favourite SF ideas for a book – the book itself isn’t up to much – is Norman Spinrad’s The Iron Dream, a futuristic fantasy supposedly written by Hitler himself after his emigration to the USA and a career as an SF illustrator.
Muz
9 March 2013 at 7:17 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
8 years still not enough to learn how to be president though
Matt G
9 March 2013 at 7:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well at least he was a great president.
Oh, wait….
rogerfirth
9 March 2013 at 7:40 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
To me, Shrub has always appeared to be developmentally disabled. The similarities between him and my friend’s developmentally disabled adult son are amazing. Physically an adult male, but you notice a definite lack of mental acuity just by his demeanor. And when he speaks, even more. And when he does something basic, like turn out a light or close a door, the people close to him praise him to no end and fawn over him endlessly. It’s kind of embarrassing.
Ohhhh! What cute puppies George! You paint such pretty puppies! You’re a wonderful artist, George! Just as good as Rembrandt or van Gogh! We should have an opening for your work at a Chelsea art gallery!
And is it just me, or do his self-portraits of himself in the shower resemble that Spanish church fresco a woman tried to restore and turned into a “monkey in an ill-fitting tunic”?
Abdul Alhazred
9 March 2013 at 8:11 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh yeah?
Well Stalin wasn’t a great painter. Just like Obama.
:p
Bill Openthalt
9 March 2013 at 8:24 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hitler wasn’t a great painter. I looked at some of Mrs Schickelgruber’s son’s “art”, and it’s the kind of stuff that fetches $50 because the frame is in reasonable condition. That being said, Dubya’s dogs aren’t half as good as der Dolf’s landscapes.
Zeppelin
9 March 2013 at 8:27 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
This is incredibly funn
I just love looking at that picture of him smiling like a dumb, happy child, next to his terrible painting of a fluffy little dog, and knowing that actual people went and chose that dude to run an actual country, twice.
Don Quijote
9 March 2013 at 8:37 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
¡HOSTIA, THE DOGS OF WAR!!!!!!!!
Larry
9 March 2013 at 9:18 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Its really wonderful that a man that started and fucked up two wars costing thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars, made the country complicit in the use of torture, allowed the banks to run wild resulting in thousands losing their homes, tanked the US economy, and, through dis-interest and inaction, allowed the worst terrorist action to occur on US soil has a hobby painting dogs.
Rip Steakface
9 March 2013 at 9:20 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
This looks like a local FOX affiliate – they usually have little to do with the American Pravda. They tend towards local news (obviously) and light, easy stories… like a bad president learning to paint.
patterson
9 March 2013 at 9:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Can’t wait for he puppies to start appearing in little jackets and hats, perhaps enjoying a game of cards.
Ms. Daisy Cutter, General Manager for the Cleveland Steamers
9 March 2013 at 9:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Orac’s not gonna be happy with this post, PZ.
patterson
9 March 2013 at 9:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oops, the puppies.
Josh, Official SpokesGay
9 March 2013 at 9:40 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh, no, Ms. Daisy. Orac has magical Didn’t Notice That Glasses if the offender is a menz or not a member of the Upstart Community Which May Not Sass Him Back.
Rey Fox
9 March 2013 at 10:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Zibble, I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Oh yeah, and living through it for eight years was a LAUGH RIOT.
(footnote: he wasn’t actually elected the first time, and probably not the second time either)
Holms
9 March 2013 at 10:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Godwin’d in the title? PZM, there aren’t any speed awards for that!
lopsided
9 March 2013 at 11:17 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The whole painting fiasco really makes Bush seem like a broken, mentally handicapped child. Everybody is very careful to encourage his macaroni art and applauds when he doesn’t soil himself. It’s completely fucking bizarre for a former head of state.
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)
9 March 2013 at 11:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Stop being silly. OK, Alois Hitler was born Alois Schicklgruber (you didn’t even get the name right FFS), but he changed his name, legally, in 1876, and married Adolf Hitler’s mother in 1883, so she was never Mrs. Schicklgruber. Why the fuck does anyone consider it funny, or clever, or cool, to do this? Plenty of people change their names. It’s not as if there isn’t plenty to laugh at Hitler about, if that’s what you want to do.
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)
9 March 2013 at 11:30 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And it would really be a good idea to stop comparing Bush to people with learning disabilities. Bush does not have learning disabilities, and people who do, have done nothing to deserve to be compared to a loathsome war criminal.
Larry
9 March 2013 at 11:53 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Spot on! He is simply a lazy bastard who had everything given to him and got away with shit because of Daddy Bush. Comparing him to people who struggle through life with real afflictions is preposterous.
stevem
9 March 2013 at 12:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ad hominem! ad hominem! How dare you compare W to Hitler, just because they both paint? That’s like comparing you to Stalin for being an atheist. shame on you, shame, shame, shame. [jk]
What’s sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander. What goes around, comes around. The “cons” always use the same kinda attacks on the “libs”, how does it work now, in reverse?
Naked Bunny with a Whip
9 March 2013 at 12:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’ll assume you inserted your “[jk]” a paragraph too early since you can’t really think PZ is being deadly serious comparing Bush to Hitler like the T’pers are when they talk about Obama.
jnorris
9 March 2013 at 1:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
GW can’t attend C-PAC again this year because he’s painting. Right?
Sonja
9 March 2013 at 4:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I also plan to spend my retirement painting(in a dozen or so years). But this was my first ever drawing of a dog: http://tinyurl.com/atwbcw9
Maybe I ought to run for president first. There’s no way I could do worse.
Noadi
9 March 2013 at 5:57 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m glad he’s found a nice harmless hobby to keep him out of trouble, good for him I hope he keeps it up and doesn’t let anyone discourage him. Not because I think he’s a great painter (he’s not, he seems to paint the same boring stuff I see a lot of retired hobbyist painters do) but because I’d rather he spend the rest of his years in obscurity painting cute puppies instead of meddling in politics or failing in business (again) and costing people their jobs.
That doesn’t excuse his teacher’s hyperbole though. It is insulting to everyone who spends countless hours perfecting their art skills and coming up with creative concepts. I’ve taught art classes and I’ve learned that the best way to teach is to be encouraging while still telling them what needs to be improved, and you can’t do that and say they are destined to be one of the greats.
carlisaacson
9 March 2013 at 10:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Post Presidential Hobbies: GWB paints puppies. Jimmy Carter builds houses for the poor and keeps an eye on international elections. Bill Clinton organizes giant fund drives to rescue tsunami victims, and plays saxophone. Which of these three deserves to be mocked?
chigau (just call me chigau)
10 March 2013 at 12:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sonja
Cute puppy!
mothra
10 March 2013 at 3:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Richard Nixon wrote his memoirs (trying) to salvage his repuation, Gerald Ford played golf. Hmmm, looks like at least recent Democratic Presidents use their time in office as a stepping stone to becomming world citizens. Republican presidents retreat from public life.
changerofbits
10 March 2013 at 5:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Awww, did George find something that gets positive feedback? Its really quite a shame that he didn’t wake up in the universe to a less privaledged family… Maybe if all that reincarnation garbage is true, he won’t be a tool next time.