This is a painting Our President loves; it’s called “A Charge to Keep,” and GW Bush even used that as the title for his autobiography.
Here’s what Bush himself says about the picture.
I thought I would share with you a recent bit of Texas history which epitomizes our mission. When you come into my office, please take a look at the beautiful painting of a horseman determinedly charging up what appears to be a steep and rough trail. This is us. What adds complete life to the painting for me is the message of Charles Wesley that we serve One greater than ourselves.
Bush got it wrong. The painting has been traced back to its source, and it turns out it doesn’t portray a Methodist missionary spreading the word on the Texas frontier…it’s something far more appropriate.
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.”
I laughed and laughed. It epitomizes their mission, alright.
Is this even surprising? Bush sees what he wants to see and facts be damned. He does no research and believes he can just “sense” the truth because he is so “successful” and gifted.
What a moron
Well, maybe it’s a methodist horse thief? And all he needs is to steal one more horse and god will tell him where the WMD’s are hidden!
It’s not appropriate. Bush got his 15 minute head-start.
♪You’re so vain
You probably think this painting’s about you
You’re so va-a-a-a-ain
I’ll bet you think this painting’s about you
Don’t you? Don’t you?♬
Isn’t it just like a religious fanatic to usurp a painting
of a completely different meaning from what he wishes it to be. The freaking nerve of Bush to try and snow the
mass of the brain-dead into thinking it was of a spiritual
mood rather than one of sheer desperation of the rider to
escape from materialistic justice. Ha!, to the rider, the
horse is the greater one in effecting his escape ! What
contemptuous crap to take a life or death situatuion and
turn it into a scenario of salvation with appeal to the
non-existent great one. More insane drivel.
As someone born and raised in Texas, I will never get over disliking this idiot pretending to be a Texan.
I’ve read Bush is actually afraid of horses. Certainly, I’ve never seen a photograph of him on a horse, or even near one.
If the image you’re try to project is that of a proud western man — AND if you’re the kind of guy who will hold up a Navy carrier returning from a war zone for a day just so you can fly out and grandstand on deck for a photo-op — horseback pictures are a no-brainer, I’d think.
But Bush + horse? Nope. Ain’t never seen it.
Bush is about as Texan as pizza. He’s a liar, a phony, a fake, a poser … and not even a very good one.
Any predictions as to how he will try to spin this? The embarrassment ought to be personal and strong enough to make him react emotionally.
No, Brownian. The proper patriotic pro-American tune to play along with this painting is the one Reagan chose: Bruce Springstein’s “Born in the USA.”
A charge to keep: lying my way through life, destoying the Constitution, destroying the lives of thousands upon thousands of Iraqis.
Fucking, fucking asshole.
Oops, darn. Well, here’s a picture of Bush on a horse:
http://napoleonbush.cf.huffingtonpost.com/
Where have you been for the past 7 years? The spin will be that it didn’t happen.
It’s just as well.
The song should have gone “You’re so dumb“.
Any chance the real story behind this piece was known and they made the sheep-friendly story up for the campaign?
As far as art appreciation goes, I’d have expected Bush to be more of a Thomas Kinkade sort of person.
That horse has “I’m a Methodist” written all over its face.
I’ve never seen the picture before, but I thought it was quite evident upon 1st viewing that the rider was trying to get away from those behind him.
Moggie,
Are you sure? Kinkade might just be a bit too advanced for him.
It’s nice to find this out but the Weisberg book looks like a piece of crap.
muhr (#15):
Ditto.
It’s all fairly accurate. Bush is a smooth talking thief, though he’s getting away with crimes much worse than stealing a horse.
Anybody want to form a posse?
I think even Bush’s interpretation is even more hilarious; yes, the lives of the son’s of multi-millionaire ex-presidents is nothing but an uphill struggle of debauchery and failed oil companies.(snicker) I think the first time Bush had to really deal with any adversity in his life was when Gore wouldn’t just roll over for him in 2001.
“As far as art appreciation goes, I’d have expected Bush to be more of a Thomas Kinkade sort of person.”
I would think Remington would be his tastes. Popular western American triumphalism.
What adds complete life to the painting for me is the message of Charles Wesley that we serve One greater than ourselves.
Wesley foresaw Dick Cheney?
I’m listening to the NPR interview with Weisberg. He’s a real piece of work.
“I think he’s made bad mistakes, but I don’t think he’s committed high crimes and misdemeanors. … I don’t think we want to criminalize his error. We want to understand it. … We want to give him a little sympathetic room.”
Bull. Fucking. Shit.
Oh, I’d like to give Bush a little room too. Door locked from the outside and bars on the window.
(From inside Bush’s spin strategy session)
Can we blame it on bad intelligence?
Nah, we’ve done that one to death.
How about claiming he was never really said that?
No, way too much documentation.
Can’t we just suppress that with some Executive Privilege and National Security claims?
It’s already out there.
Hmmm, is Scott Horton married? Can we intimidate him into shutting up by going after his wife?
Risky. If that blows up again we’re pretty much out of fall guys. But you may be on to something, go after the source.
Well, he’s done all kinds of work critical of this administration. He’s obviously a Commie.
These days we blame al Qaeda, not Comm… that’s it! We’ll declare him an enemy combatant ship him of to an undisclosed military prison. We’ll cut all his contact with the outside world. Then we’ll came he made the whole thing up and any evidence to the contrary is part of an al Qaeda plot.
Perfect!
(end transcript)
Run, Scott Horton! RUN!!!!
Well Jesus was a horse thief, or a donkey thief.
Well, he already go away with 935 lies, so what’s one more?
“got”
Always preview.
Always.
Ric,
I think, technically Jesus was a fence. Though you may be able to pin enticement on him.
And perhaps the figtree incident counts as malicious damage.
Wow, this goober is too lazy and/or dumb to bother finding out anything about about anything at all before spouting off with some made up bullshit. He’s a parody of Stephen Colbert’s parody of himself. How cynical can you get? He knows he doesn’t even have to try and it doesn’t matter.
But, the real question is do I get a Molly for sending this one to PZ? That and I sent some insanely detailed info about daleks
andcybermen to the dumb fundie bookstore’s customer services department.He’s a puppet.
Some idiot in the press department fed him the info about the painting and he just spouted it out like the good little dolt he is.
And the press rarely calls him out on anything he says, so what does he really have to worry about.
I don’t envy Dubya and acknowledge that the Presidency is one of the hardest jobs in the world. (Do Presidents age 10 years for every 4 they spend in office? Photos suggest that is the case.) However, this is a man, one who has never known a day of true hardship in his life, who claims to have peered into the soul of a man like Vladimir Putin. What arrogance! I can’t help but wonder what Putin thinks of Bush. Putin, who grew up in one of those dreadful Soviet one-room working-class apartments in Leningrad, with a tiny kitchen shared by the family in the next room and a toilet that would make a Port Authority bus station wino blanche.
Slightly OT, but Alexander Goldfarb quotes Boris Berezovsky as saying (and I paraphrase) “The Americans are fools to trust Putin. They are wrong if they think he is their friend. He will play the Americans against the Muslims to his own advantage.” That particular scenario may not have played out quite as Berezovsky imagined, but in the bigger picture I think he’s right. Putin and Bush were on opposites sides of the Orange Revolution in Kiev, and I haven’t noticed Putin become increasingly pro-West since then. Berezovsky worked closely with Putin for years; in fact he helped Putin ascend to the Presidency in the first place. Berezovsky understands Putin. Bush is an arrogant fool. I can’t wait to see the last of him. How many more days? :-|
And then there’s his molestation of the German Chancellor. What an ass! What an embarrassment! Well, at least he didn’t puke on the Japanese PM, althoug in some respects that’s more forgivable.
Ok. End rant.
[* calms self down *]
Naw, GW’s taste in tat artsy stuff ‘ud run mores likein to a Harvey Dunn type o picture: lonely prairies, wearying physical labor, rugged individualism, scrupulous honesty– exactly antithetical to his public persona and ‘accomplishments.’
Bush is a smooth talking thief…
Well, he’s a thief, alright. But a smooth talker?
Let’s not carried away.
C’mon, if that guy was really a horse thief, he’d be wearing a black hat!
And what does a “smooth-talking” risk-taker have in common with Dubious?
“A Charge to Keep” sounds like a name someone lacking a basic command of the English language might think up…
The painting must be some kind of a wierd dream. It could hardly be Charles Wesley since he isn’t wearing 18th century garb although the country scene might be in a remote of the Appalachians.
It could not be the Sand Hills in Nebrasks. I’ve been there – it’s grassy dunes with marshes in the low-lying areas with no trees and the hills are too big. Looks like the cowboys are in the coastal range in Oregon where they must have riled up a band of Sasquatch.
Sure doesn’t look like Bush’s Baja Oklahoma either.
It’s classic Bush. He looks at something, then makes up the story. He just doesn’t seem to know any other way.
Hank, you’re never going to see Bush on a horse because even Bush realizes the average horse is smarter than he is.
“This is us.“
(?!?)
Apparently, the correct use of the predicate nominative, as well as subject-verb agreement is now indicative of anti-patriotic, if not godless, influences.
I think Harvard needs to reconsider some of its previously-awarded degrees.
Excuse me. I should have inserted a comma after “agreement.” And I’m torn about the comma I put after “godless.”
More Teh Funny…
http://www.politicalcortex.com/story/2006/5/13/222815/402
…by slaughtering animals, smearing blood all over themselves and their children, then burning the carcasses on open fires.
Someone please get this story to Jon Stewart or Keith Olberman!
A noble horseman leads a gallant charge–
Full gallop, up a steep and rocky trail
The group he leads is small; their courage large,
And heart and God ensure they will prevail.
This painting is a message to us all,
The very spirit of the Lone Star State,
That when our cause is just, we cannot fall–
Serve God, and you need never fear your fate!
Except…the painting here depicts a thief,
Who only narrowly escapes the noose;
The story may be Bush’s true belief,
But his interpretation is… well… loose.
A realistic painting, but at best
For Bush, a diagnostic Rorschach test
If I believed in karma or some other type of woo, that’s what I’d chalk it up to. I’m sorry, this story sums up GWB perfectly.
OTOH, I’ve actually looked at his autobiography at a relative’s house. My reaction was something like “George Bush can write?”
“Hank, you’re never going to see Bush on a horse because even Bush realizes the average horse is smarter than he is.”
Just HALF of the horse…
@cuttlefish
WOW. [Applause]
Stealing horses was a capital offense throughout the west well into the 20th century. I’d bet a dollar that there are still statutes in some states that call for a trip to the gallows for this crime (unenforceable today but, like many archaic laws, there they languish).
To steal a man’s horse in the frontier west was tantamount to killing the man. A lone man on foot stood little chance of surviving in a harsh environment. This rationale would still hold water today if the west hadn’t been, ah, tamed. Truth be told, I could take you today to places where, without this only practical means of transport, you would most likely die.
That aside, the entire farce of Bush’s “western character,” his “Texas upbringing,” and his “rugged, cowboy approach” is a sham, a daydream, a ploy, a lie, a pose, a ruse; and utterly transparent to anyone who has even so much as spent two weeks at a dude ranch. I he’s a cowboy, then I’m Jesus Christ.
Tip of the ol’ Stetson to Cuttlefish! I thought I’d be first to mention horse stealin’ was a hangin’ offense ’round these parts. Yer quicker on the draw than I, parder.
[more applause]
Odd – I always thought Bush’s level of art appreciation would never get beyond Margaret Keane paintings of puppies, but chances are he’d misinterpret those as well…
Or maybe what Bush is trying to say that recent Texas history is about determinant smooth-talking and lynching?
Don’t mess with Texas, I guess.
Some describe Bush as “All hat and no cattle.”
“Some describe Bush as “All hat and no cattle.””
–especially appropriate since his “ranch” has no cattle and, thus, is not actually a ranch.
According to former Mexican president Fox, Bush is indeed afraid of horses.
Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, derided his political friend as a “windshield cowboy” – a cowboy who prefers to drive – and “the cockiest guy I have ever met in my life”.
He recalled a meeting in Mexico shortly after both men had been elected when Mr Fox offered Mr Bush a ride on a “big palomino” horse.
Mr Fox, who left office in December, recalled Mr Bush “backing away” from the animal.
”A horse lover can always tell when others don’t share our passion,” he said, according to the Washington Post.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/21/wbush121.xml
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0710/08/lkl.01.html
Horses are so sweet and easy to get along with. Maybe they can sense a monster in Bush, because otherwise he must be scared of a shadow to be afraid of horses (speaking of relatively tame horses obviously).
Say, afterthought, could Bush be tentative around horses for this reason? That horses have a stiffly reinforced spine and cannot wiggle appealingly like, say, a dog? Horses can’t change their body postures with the speed and variety of a dog and thus may seem to Bush to be aloof, distant (and lots bigger, too). A dog will grovel and beg on its own volition. A horse rarely does unless specifically trained. I understand that Bush likes dogs. Just exploring the idea, here. It occurred to me when I read your post above and associated your handle with it . . . Heh, neat.
If I had more photo-search expertise, I’d support this assertion with an irrefutable set of links – but I don’t, and don’t feel like spending the rest of this Saturday night hunting online, so y’all will just have to search for yourselves, or to take my humble word for it…
… but doesn’t the protagonist of that painting look an awful lot like Dubious of, say, 35 years ago?
(Except for being shown on horseback, but we can, without much strain, consider that as representing various other felonies.)
Oops – this Friday night.
Me go beddy-bye now.
What I don’t get is how you all assume that he didn’t know what the painting is really about. This is just one moreof his unbelievably brash in your face ‘Fuck-you’s’ to the nation. This is what passes in Republican circles as clever and witty – “lookit me guys, I’m wavin my pecker in their faces and they don’t even know it!”
All it is is more confirmation that he KNOWS we know he is a knowing criminal – and that NOBODY is going to hold him accountable. Witness the passing of America. Attend the tale of Georgie Bush.
Must admit I do allow different interpretations of imagery or all sorts, including those different from the painter/author/artist. A friend of mine painted some cannonballs, but I saw it as a suit. Meaning is in the eye of the beholder.
That said, of course it is a giant faux pas from Bush’s side. Bloody amateur.
Must admit I do allow different interpretations of imagery or all sorts, including those different from the painter/author/artist. A friend of mine painted some cannonballs, but I saw it as a suit. Meaning is in the eye of the beholder.
That said, of course it is a giant faux pas from Bush’s side. Bloody amateur.
Too funny!
Thanks!
“Some describe Bush as “All hat and no cattle.””
–especially appropriate since his “ranch” has no cattle and, thus, is not actually a ranch.
[Stan @ #52]
It’s more like Marie Antoinette’s “dairy.” But at least she had some cows.
Excuse me. I should have inserted a comma after “agreement.” And I’m torn about the comma I put after “godless.”
If you don’t know that a comma before a parenthesis like “if not godless” must have a matching one after, you have no business commenting on English grammar at all.
What I don’t get is how you all assume that he didn’t know what the painting is really about.
It’s reasonable given what a demonstrably incompetent moron he is.
All it is is more confirmation that he KNOWS we know he is a knowing criminal
Uh, no, you’re own belief about something is not confirmation of the belief. Confirmation would be some evidence that Bush knew what the painting was really about. You accuse people here of assuming the contrary, and then actually take your own assumption as a confirming fact. That makes you both arrogant and rather moronic yourself.
The link to the Salon article at the Harper’s site gives the text that Dumbya is so inspired by.
“In 1995, at Bush’s inaugural as governor of Texas, his wife, Laura, selected an 18th century Methodist hymn, written by Charles Wesley, titled “A Charge to Keep.” Its words in part are:
A charge to keep I have,
A God to glorify,
A never-dying soul to save,
And fit it for the sky.
To serve the present age,
My calling to fulfill:
O may it all my powers engage
To do my master’s will!”
Remember, he once said that he had a calling from beyond the stars.
Is anyone else reminded of when Bush claimed he read Camus’ The Stranger while on vacation? There’s a similarity in his wanting to seem meaningful while just not getting the meaning.
JAIL TO THE THIEF
——————
What do you mean by “correct”? This is English, not German or Latin. Like in French, the oblique form of pronouns has been in use for emphasis in English for centuries, and the agreement of “is” with “this” (singular) instead of “us” (plural) isn’t exactly new, either. It’s a distinctive feature of English.
No, either two commas or neither. Just one is not an option. Comment 63 is almost right (truth machine confused grammar and orthography).
JAIL TO THE THIEF
——————
What do you mean by “correct”? This is English, not German or Latin. Like in French, the oblique form of pronouns has been in use for emphasis in English for centuries, and the agreement of “is” with “this” (singular) instead of “us” (plural) isn’t exactly new, either. It’s a distinctive feature of English.
No, either two commas or neither. Just one is not an option. Comment 63 is almost right (truth machine confused grammar and orthography).
Bush at home on the ranch.
I thought that was a picture of Valerie Plame trying to get away from Karl Rove.
truth_machine (#64) said,
Second that.
The guy just isn’t reflective enough to comprehend the connection and isn’t studious enough to find it.
Bjørn @ 60: It’s one thing to say, “this painting to me seems to represent power, motion, and perseverance.” It’s another thing to just make up what the painting is about and claim it as fact.
Bernarda @ 65: Very interesting. Taking the text of the hymn with what PZ says Bush says about the picture seems to suggest that Bush doesn’t even know that “charge” means obligation in this context and not “rushing forward.” We can’t be sure that that’s true, but it really seems to be. More evidence that he is, in all likelihood, a dope.
I suppose, though that would translate into dislike but not necessarily fear. I suppose he might have had some bad experience playing polo at the club as a child or something, but that’s still not a rational reason to fear horses. I will give you that Bush probably only has use for animals that grovel just as he only has use for people that grovel.
It’s obvious that the in the title “”A Charge to Keep” the word ‘charge’ is a noun and refers to the horse, not a verb meaning charge, or an obligation”.
So it might as well be named “A Horse to Keep”, which makes it pretty clear that this is a painting of a horse thief being chased. Which could still be considered an inspirational Christian message considering that Jesus was a horse thief.
In Luke Chapter nineteen:
Now a Christian might claim this is ambiguous because at the end the tell the owners why they need the colt and it’s not clear whether they agreed to let them have it or not. Well, that’s not the ethical problem as I see it.
Jesus didn’t ask is followers to go to the owner and ask for the colt. No he said take it, and if they catch you taking it and ask you why, then tell them that “Because the Lord hath need of him.” But why should that matter? Certainly a all powerful God isn’t going to need a horse.
So probably upon hearing this the owners thought the local warlord was confiscating his horse and that if they didn’t comply they’d suffer the consequences. That is they believed their horse was being stolen but were not in the position to do anything about it. Hell if they believed God himself had requested the colt to be confiscated then the same would be true. Were these presumably simple farmers ever compensated for their loss?
Furthermore had the owners not been around this would clearly have been a theft, so Jesus set them on the task of stealing a horse, they were caught, and Jesus gave them a story that he thought the owners could be suckered into believing.
If you read Luke 20 you can see that Jesus was quite the philosophical trickster. His authority to steal horses, interfere with the local religious practices, and the like are questioned here:
20:2 And spake unto him, saying, Tell us, by what authority doest thou these things? or who is he that gave thee this authority?
Like a true politician he never answers the question. Instead he asks them:
20:4 The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men?
He then proceeds to baffle them with bullshit, which they sort of deserve, seeing how they are priests. This is a pretty famous section that contains the part.
20:25 And he said unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar’s, and unto God the things which be God’s.
Most Christians however don’t know about the horse thievery.
I wonder if the guy in the painting told the owners of the horse he was taking it in Gods name. At least it’s clear in this case that the owners didn’t buy the story.
Brian @ 74: How do you figure that “charge” refers to the horse? I don’t think it does. For one thing, the painting was not originally titled “A Charge to Keep” and the hymn in 65 makes it clear what “charge” means.
Even if we were to accept your interpretation, “charge” is a noun either way. They’re just homonyms of each other; there is no verb meaning “an obligation”.
Anyone notice how much the Horse Thief in the painting bears a passing resemblance to the Horse Thief-in-Chief?
Don’t credit the Thief-in-Chief with too much imagination.
According to this article , the painting became a kind of stock illustration, reused at least twice to illustrate different cowboy stories. One of the stories really was called “A Charge To Keep.”
No idea if that story had missionaries, horse thieves, or both, but the original painting apparently ended up in the hands of a Bush family crony.
He doesn’t even make this stuff up himself. Just believes what people tell him. Not sure if that’s better or worse, really.
Oh, I wouldn’t dream of crediting him with a full stack of “imagination”. I just think he’s full of himself, and what residue of an imagination he does have is governed by pareidolia. He probably sees himself next to the image of Jesus on tortillas and potato chips.
Your right it was a bad sentence structure on my part and the comma was not sufficient. I meant only to refer to the word charge as a verb that was bracketed within the common and not the word obligation also.
Then again, I’m probably wrong in that regard too because to refer to the horse as a charge as I have heard in the past would imply that the animal was an obligation. That is if someone taking care of a horse referred to it as “my charge” there would be an implication of obligation.
In the past I’ve heard of horses referred to charges and I think I made the mistake in my mind of thinking it was a kind of synecdoche where the capability of the object was substituted for the name of the object itself. I did a quick search to see if I could find such references and I could not. So I don’t think that is the case.
Instead I think that everywhere that I heard of a horse referred to as a charge was a case where there was an implication of caring for the animal. I don’t think that would apply here as the horse is being stolen. So I retract my claim. That is unless the author intended the title to say the thief now has a new horse to take care of. Not sure what alternate meaning you could give it.
Why would someone “keep” “a charge” in the sense of a full speed gallop? I guess he could be meaning that he better keep his speed up or he’s going to get caught.
That makes you both arrogant and rather moronic yourself. – Posted by: truth machine
And you are a self-deluding gullible rube, so what a pair we make.
natural cynic @#36
Heh. That was my reaction too. I’m from western Nebraska and it couldn’t look less like that area. The artist might as well have painted the seaside in the background.
Eric,
I really don’t understand what motivated you to make post #59. Do you really believe that stuff or are you just being dramatic? Won’t it be much easier to believe that Bush sees himself as doing good? Torturing terrorists isn’t such a big leap into evil. Sam Harris made it. Do you think Harris is evilly chuckling to himself over his book?
Actually, Jacob Weisberg’s account is the fourth story written about Bush and his “A Charge To Keep” painting that I am aware of.
Sidney Blumenthal did a version in April 2007, for Salon.com, entitled From Norman Rockwell to Abu Ghraib
An earlier extended, 3450 word story about Bush and the painting was Horseshit! Bush and the Christian Cowboy, by Jonathan Hutson, published May 12, 2006, at Talk To Action.
But credit for unearthing the actual details of the painting’s origin appears to belong to Michael Horner, writing “The Roundup” for Milwaukee World, in a February 23, 2004, piece entitled GEORGE W. BUSH, ART CRITIC. Horner concluded the piece with:
“Leave it to Bush to endow a cowboy painting with religious significance that it may have lacked in its original context.
The painting was by W.H.D. Koerner (1878-1938), a Texas born painter who began his career at 15 doing illustrations for the Chicago Tribune.
The painting’s origin was about as secular and commercial as you can imagine. It was commissioned by the Saturday Evening Post in 1916 to illustrate a fiction piece entitled “The Slipper Tongue.” The same magazine reused it the next year for a story called “Ways that are Dark.”
It appeared one final time as a magazine illustration in 1918, appearing under the title “A Charge to Keep.” That time it accompanied a story by the same name by Ben Ames Williams, but not in the Saturday Evening Post. Nope, pardner. The story that time appeared in Country Gentleman.”
George Bush is the bestest president ever, in a nookylur sorta way.
To me, the telling moment of the Bush presidency was his immediate reaction to 911. It was not ‘America is in danger’ the death of an idea type of crisis, but rather (to borrow an Isaac Asimov phrase): the puny seeping fear of personal destruction. He looked as if he’d been caught out being as foolish as (in fact) he is. Whenever I find myself having some sympathy for one how is so roundly despised, I remember those moments- and others.
I find it very telling that he talks about the _horseman_
“determinedly charging”, as if it isn’t the horse that’s doing all the work.