Artist's Statement

An unabashed wish fulfillment, simple in concept, but bold in execution. This drawn in the spirit of Hunter Thompson’s reminder, when Nixon was on the ropes, that "I was kicking Richard Nixon a long time before he was down." I’ll admit that I’ve found it less fun to attack the Bush Administration since it’s begun to crumble than when it seemed so monolithic and invincible. But I am taking unashamed glee in their disintegration--in the Valerie Plame scandal, the NSA domestic spying scandal, the Jack Abramoff scandal, the Hookergate scandal, the administration leaking everywhere like some bloated emperor being made to suffer the Death by the Little Cuts. No matter how many speeches George makes, no matter how they try to spin things, there is, looming over it all, ruining everything, the insoluble quagmire in Iraq. (Yes, Don Rumsfeld, remember making giddy fun of the word, back in ’03? It’s a quagmire, Don, a quagmire, quagmire, QUAGMIRE.) Most thrillingly of all, there are the sub-Nixonioan poll numbers. George is now officially the least popular President in the history of public opinion polls. Yesterday in an airport I saw a cover story in the tabloid The Globe purporting to reveal that George and Laura are living separate lives in the White House, barely speaking over George’s drinking. I realize that tabloids are diversions for the dumb and it’s hard to imagine well-placed White House insiders talking to Globe reporters; what’s telling is that George has now become fodder for the normally conservative gutter press. I watched George’s speech on immigration reform not because I’m particularly interested in the issue but because I wanted to watch his face now that his presidency has gone irrevocably to shit. I’ve been strongly tempted in the last week to write a letter to the President, telling him, "George, you never did anything right, and nobody likes you," just to make him cry. Instead, I drew this. Is it illegal to draw oneself physically assaulting the President of the United States? We will see!

Hm? Oh, yes, um, well, yes, that is the Emperor Palpatine on my T-shirt, symbolizing that I have been seduced by my own personal Dark Side. "Give in to your hate…. Your hate has made you powerful!"

I hope it is clear that these are only the opening shots in what is likely to be a very, very long sequence of kicks…

‘--and THIS is for everyone who dies on 9/11 [3,030 kicks]—

--and THIS is for ignoring ‘Bin Laden determined to Strike in U.S.’—

--and THIS is for "we would have moved Heaven and Earth"—

--and THIS is for having to testify to the 9/11 commission with Mister Cheney sitting right beside you holding your hand and helping you remember your lines—

--and THIS is for exploiting 9/11 to revoke our civil liberties—

—and invade Iraq—

--and get re-elected—

--and THIS is for the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act--

--and THIS is for "you’re either with us or against us"—

--and THIS is for "evildoers"—

--and "Axis of Evil"—

--and your "moral clarity"—

--and THIS is for "dead or alive"—

--and THIS is for letting Osama bin Laden go [extra hard kick]—

--and saying he "wasn’t a priority"--

--and THIS is for linking "Saddam Hussein" and "al Qaeda" over [kick] and over [kick] and over [kick] again—

--and THIS is for saying you never said it [kick in the teeth, through which he lied]--

--and THIS is for "Weapons of Mass Destruction"

--and the made-up stolen uranium--

--and THIS is for "greeted as liberators"—

--and THIS is for calling Americans who protested against thee war "focus groups"--

--and THIS is for every American who’s died in Iraq [2,454 kicks]—

--and THIS is for the wounded [17,648 more kicks]--

--and THIS is for every Iraqi –[exact figure unavailable, so we’ll average out the estimates for a charitable 40,000 kicks]--

--and THIS is for "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED"

--and that gay-ass flight suit—

--and THIS is for "detainees"—

--and THIS is for "enemy combatants"--

--and THIS is for extraordinary rendition—

--and THIS is for Guantanamo Bay—

--and THIS is for Abu Ghraib--

--and THIS is for the secret CIA camps in Eastern Europe--

--and THIS is for torture—

--and THIS is for the NEXT terrorist attack--

--and THIS is for the tax cuts--

--and THIS is for the additional tax cuts--

--and THIS is for making the tax cuts permanent—

--and THIS is for the new medicare laws written by pharmaceutical companies--

--and THIS is for the new bankruptcy laws written by the credit card companies—

--and THIS is for the new overtime restrictions written by employers—

--and THIS is for the sleazy move you tried to pull with "social security reform"—

--and THIS is for John Ashcroft—

--and Harriet Miers--

--and John Bolton--

--and Michael Brown—

--and every other inept crony you’ve appointed to a government post [exact number to be determined by caprice]--

--and THIS is for lying about global warming—

--and THIS is for New Orleans [in a special surprise, every citizen of New Orleans lines up to administer a kick, or two]—

--and this is for ""no one could have predicted"--

--and THIS is for saying ‘heckuva"---

--and THIS is for "nuclular"--

--and THIS is for blocking the morning-after pill—

--and THIS is for Terri Schiavo—

--and her husband—

---and this is for Cindy Sheehan--

--and THIS is for the Defense of Marriage Act--

--and THIS is for Swift Boat Veterans for Truth—

--and THIS is for Diebold—

--and THIS is for stealing the election--

--and THIS is for thinking it’s cute and folksy to be so stupid--

--and THIS is for being wrong about absolutely everything—

--and THIS is for not being able to think of a single mistake you ever made—

--and THIS is for firing or smearing everyone who ever disagreed with you--

--and THIS is for giving Jesus Christ a bad name--

--and THIS is for never having done a single brave or original thing in your whole stunted life—

--and following every order Mister Cheney ever gave you—

--and this is for making me look at your stupid fucking face every day for the last six years [a final, two-footed stomp, directly on his face].

This is, obviously, only a partial list, far from complete. Just the first few grievances off the top of my head, If I were to list every crime and failing of George W. Bush, then, as the apostle John wrote, "I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written."

[New experimental RSS feed: . Let Webmaster Dave know if it works.]