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There were also a couple of lewd, crude, anatomically correct pictures of William Jefferson Clinton's paraphernalia coming close to meandering down into sight from his nyon jogging shorts. But Clinton's belly hid anything pertinent from view, and GBJr. is in such better shape, at least physically, than WJC, that he really is in a better position to let most of it stand up and salute the citizenry. What does this mean to an American public that needs our figurehead president to be more than a figurehead; to be, if not a sex symbol, then at least a power symbol? Well, for one thing it shows that the American Empire has truly gone back to the example of the Roman Empire, when emperors were often sculpted at least half way in the raw, and you got to see a lot more of them in stone than we get to see in flesh nowadays. But then, who but Hadassah would like to see Joe Lieberman naked? Not I. To the Romans, showing virile autocratic leaders with much apparatus in evidence was a vital part of the Roman power game. The Romans did not invent the idea that image was everything (okay, I know you're sure it was Madonna) but they did take it a lot further than the ever-tasteful Greeks. They, if you read Homer, were still naive enough to believe that actions had to speak louder than words. Or even pictures. Of course in George Bush's ascendancy, words have to do minimal work anyway. And the actions aren't exactly great, either: stomping the Iraqi toad with the Republican elephant. But Bushie's symbolic picture actions have been worthy of a McDonald's dollar meal: the maximum amount of show with the minimal amount of food value. We got to see GBJr. (somewhat) piloting a jet onto the deck of an aircraft carrier, without killing anyone . . . although he came close. But most important, we got to see him come out of it in a hot flight suit, showing off his box like a Seventeenth Century Italian nobleman showing off a very well-stuffed codpiece. Molto bene, Bushie!
After all, what was a man of power then, except a well-stuffed crotch? From Julius Caesar to Henry VIII to Mussolini, it was important to have evidence of the little dog's eager head popping out between the thrusting legs and just below the hand with a spear in it. In other words (words, Virginia, we cannot use in public) the only thing more symbolic than showing the Big Man's hand on a missile was a glimpse of the of the "big stick" below it. This is a primal human image, and it has been lost in the hundred years since the three-piece suit was inflicted on us voyeurs of the species. Bush, who is not exactly deep, intellectually weighty, or headed for a stellar pedestal in history except for his own buffoonery, can now simply be seen for what he is: the presidential peg on which so much will now be hung. Upon this peg, we will have all the phony show compassion towards Third World kids with AIDS but not for Americans; the tax cuts that favor billionaires while armies of us become homeless; the presidential interest in "sp'rituality," a.k.a., shoveling tax money to church schools so they can show us how God created the earth in 6 days, rested on the 7th, and denounced queers on the 8th; and the continuing rape of the world environment. For all of this, we want to thank you, George. Thanks for showing us dick; and we also want to thank Dick Chaney and Tommy Thompson for making it all possible. Perry Brass will soon be publishing his 13th book, The Substance of God, A Spiritual Thriller. You can check out more of his "Big Ideas" through his website, www.perrybrass.com |
This official photo of George W. Bush doesn't do the commander in chief justice ... 
... but from this angle more is evident