What are these people going to do for a muse when their "terrorist-in-chief" is gone? Even their protest art, fueled by such all-consuming righteous indignation, has proven banal and predictable at every turn, fraught with hackneyed Hitler imagery and the occasional bodily fluid. How very 1990s.
The latest fruitless artistic tantrum comes from Seattle artist Deborah Lawrence, who was asked by her local representative, Jim McDermott and Laura Bush to decorate an ornament for the White House Christmas tree. Each representative commissioned an ornament from a local artist of his choosing.
Spurning the honor bestowed upon her, the good will encouraged by the season, and any manners her mother ever taught her, Lawrence set about creating an impeachment ornament, featuring pictures of McDermott and thanking him for his backing of another fruitless tantrum- the effort to impeach Bush. How festive!
The nine-inch ball is covered with swirly red and white stripes -- and, in tiny glued-on text, salutes the Democratic congressman's support for a resolution to impeach President Bush. (Also showcased: Washington state's 1919 labor strike, its suffrage movement and the violent anti-World Trade Organization riots of 1999.) Lawrence sent it off to D.C. in September and was very surprised it was accepted for the tree -- and that she was invited to this afternoon's White House reception for the artists, which she flew to D.C. to attend.
Yes, that's right. The cranky collage artist, apparently unimpressed by the rather rare opportunity of having her elementary arts and crafts admired by foreign dignitaries and heads of state, refused to allow her paste and magazine clippings to work in the service of American hegemony.
Because her brave statement was so subtle as to first escape the notice of the White House, she was subsequently invited to a White House reception for artists, which she attended. Her bravery apparently did not extend to speaking truth to power in person, as there are no reports of Laura Bush's getting a lecture from one of the artists.
She did, however, tell of her glue-stick grievance-mongering to the Washington Post. The White House then informed the Post it would not be displaying the ornament, granting Lawrence her ascendancy to the order of righteous liberals where she will sit alongside other revolutionaries who wage self-serving war from the comfort of their urban lofts risking nothing but the spraining of their elbows in the act of self-congratulation.
So, here's to you, Deborah Lawrence, and your Elmer's-abbetted agitation. But I must say, Obama would be ashamed of you and your partisan divisiveness.
