Today was I was looking at one of those standard school posters that had all the official painted portraits of all the presidents since Washington's wooden teeth remained hidden behind his lips. Most of them were stiff, rich, old white men. Most of them stand up, in their straight I haven't had fun since I sold my soul poses. A couple took seats like Tyler, (probably because he was just as bored by his presidency as the rest of us) Cleveland, (because of that morbid obesity thing) and Franklin Roosevelt. (Because of that darn nuisance called Polio) Then you have Lincoln who's sitting down, but being classy about it. He's got the hand on the chin thinking about freeing the slaves and pretty much being the man. One stood out more than the other though. The cool Catholic playboy John F. Kennedy. See left.
Look at him. He doesn't even care that someone is painting him. He's just like "whatever. The Soviets want to go at it? I'll go knife to knife, nuke to nuke with you freezing communist bearded freaks. This is America! Don't mess with me, SON!"
Well... I'm not really sure why I was thinking about that today, but I couldn't help but look at all the portraits. Some didn't fit the president at all. Nixon for instance should be holding a bloody knife and a dead puppy. Instead he's holding some generic important document. Then Clinton had his portrait done after his hair went white. Where's that fun loving, cordial drinking president that brought the economy into the positive for the first time in... well I think ever. Then you have good ole Thomas Jefferson and James Madison who both had George Clinton (I'm assuming of the Parliament Funkadelic) as vice president... yet I'm not getting any funk flavor from their portraits.
Anyway, thoughts on your favorite presidential portraits are most welcome. Here's a good listing of all of them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States
Oh wikipedia how I love thee
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