A prophecy fulfilled.
xyz
Special report: George Bush's America
Wednesday January 24, 2001
The Guardian
George Bush made his supporters laugh by promising to give the Oval Office
in the White House "one hell of a scrubbing" when he moved in to the famous
presidential office this week. So this week, after a thorough wash-down,
workers removed just about every last bit of Clinton's legacy they could -
except the desk that Queen Victoria presented to President Rutherford B
Hayes in 1880.
Out went big Bill's bold royal blue presidential rug, his eye-catching
golden damask drapes and his plush red and cream silk-covered sofas. In came
Ronald Reagan's ivory, beige and terracotta rug (though one commentator
described this as "ivory ringed in melon and sage". Tasty, eh?) and a
"peaches and cream" colour scheme set off with cream brocade.
The renowned pen-maker, AT Cross, has supplied the new president's favourite
midnight blue felt-tip pens; these will rest on Hayes's desktop along with
framed portraits of Bush's parents, wife and children.
Medallions and busts of Democrat presidents Franklin D Roosevelt and Harry S
Truman have been ousted, but the following artworks have been retained:
Rembrandt Peel's portrait of George Washington in his Continental Army
outfit; Fred Remington's sculpture, The Bronco Buster; Thomas Moran's epic
landscape, The Three Tetons; and a Norman Rockwell oil depicting the
outstretched arm of the Statue of Liberty.
Bush has added a painting of a small boy fishing from a bridge, and another
of a man on horseback. Oh, and there are bowls of peach roses on the coffee
table. Nice.
Not much change here then, really, is there? This depends on whether you
think office decor tells a story or not. It does, of course. Bush is not,
nor has he ever been, Mr Nice Guy, yet the peach and cream colours, the
saccharine-sweet picture of a boy fishing, the outdatedly macho picture of a
rider, the peach roses and ivory carpet suggest a president who wants to
appear as warm and comfortable as a family hotel in Dallas.
Bush's taste in office decor is respectable middle America. Staff and
visitors will no longer be able to enter the peaches and cream Oval Office
in jeans, and certainly not in T-shirts. Instead the UPS (universal
politician's suit, usually grey or blue and utterly banal) for manly men
and, presumably, the pleated A-line skirt for matronly women, will be the
new dress code. Taken together, the couture and decor imply respectable,
white, middle-aged, middle-class values. No perverts or radicals here. Not
sure about dogs.
As an exercise in re-imaging Bush as a caring, compassionate politician,
will this soft, sexless, pastel-shaded, post-Clinton interior take anyone
in? The new-look Oval Office is rather like an electric chair covered in
plush or a death-row cell in Texas being given the once-over by Nicky
Haslam.
For a man who has tried hard to prove how macho he is, the peaches-and-cream
trick is particularly unconvincing. If he was true to himself, Bush should
really have gone for a hi-tech office, all stainless steel, chromed bolts,
stressed wire and gridded metal floors with piranha fish, perhaps, swimming
below them.
A reproduction of Francisco de Goya's depiction of a firing squad would
surely have been a more suitable choice of painting than that of a little
boy fishing. And maybe some guns sent in by good ol' Republican boys might
have decorated walls lined with razor blades rather than silk-finish paint.
In the good old bad days, when rightwing politicians were true to their
self-image, you could expect Adolf Hitler to plan, say, the invasion of
Poland from the depths of a titanic neo-classical office designed by Albert
Speer in an attempt to outbid Versailles. Such offices were clearly the
haunts of fanatics and megalomaniacs. At least you knew who was out to
repress you or to extend the boundaries of your empire by the whole of
western Europe and a chunk of the Balkans and Russia to jackboot.
The banal near-genius of politicians like Bush, with his peaches, cream and
ivory and respectable suits, is to make rightwing regimes seem almost
decent. How can I mean any harm, the new look Oval Office appears to say,
when I like the same kind of beige - and pastel-shaded, silk-finish decor
that most of middle America does?
There is something ultimately far more chilling in having a president who
likes executions garbed in a natty corporate executive's suit and sitting in
an office that would appeal to the mumsiest members of the Mothers of
America than having him reveal his true colours.
Hannah Arendt coined the immortal phrase "the banality of evil" to describe
the culture of fascists and Nazis in power; now we are faced with the
banality of decor with which to hide democratically elected rightwing
regimes. Somehow, after George Bush's "one hell of a scrubbing", peaches and
cream will never seem quite so innocent again.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,427267,00.html
The Frog
"xyz" <x...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:g3PT9.105436$hK4.8...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
Elmer Thudd
> A wolf in sheep's fittings
>
> Special report: George Bush's America
> Wednesday January 24, 2001
Two years ago... who cares...
Musta been a slow news-day, though... the only way the writer could
espose his hate and fear of Bush was by criticizing his fashion -sense?
Pretty lame.
> The Guardian
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,427267,00.html
The Frog
The Guardian is hardly a news source.....
Froggy
"Elmer Thudd" <wab...@wabbit.net> wrote in message
news:3E20D374...@wabbit.net...
Stupendous Man
>
> Special report: George Bush's America
>
> Wednesday January 24, 2001
> The Guardian
> self-image, you could expect Adolf Hitler to plan, say, the invasion of
Stupendous Man—Enemy of Terrorism
The USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) returns to Pearl Harbor:
http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/carriers/vinson/vin-arizmem.jpg