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George W. Bush's leaked Guccifer paintings were laughably earnest in the ex-pres's personal struggle with representation - they were self-conscious, bad, and, literally, nakedly vulnerable. The ineptitude allowed obvious metaphors that any regular publicist would shine out. A war criminal's self-portraits with all the symbolism of teenage art class. And this was the president's teenage years. Literally looking in the mirror, at toes, again, naked. Later, when Bush realized he could append thick abstraction to cover for lack of talent the paintings became middling, average, collegiate. An impasto to cover the cracks, a style to camouflage. But the bad was when it was good. Appropriate here.
