Look carefully.
Do you see it?
Probably not. There’s no reason you would, really. Bill and Hillary certainly didn’t see it nine years ago, when they personally unveiled the painting at the National Portrait Gallery. They stood right in front of it, smiling and hugging, and it was a wonderful moment for the loving couple who have stayed together for purely non-political reasons.
But now, nobody will look at that portrait the same way again. Here’s Stephanie Farr of the Philadelphia Daily News, asking painter Nelson Shanks about his various portraits of world leaders:
Q: Who did you find was the hardest to capture?
Clinton was hard. I’ll tell you why. The reality is he’s probably the most famous liar of all time. He and his administration did some very good things, of course, but I could never get this Monica thing completely out of my mind and it is subtly incorporated in the painting.
If you look at the left-hand side of it there’s a mantle in the Oval Office and I put a shadow coming into the painting and it does two things. It actually literally represents a shadow from a blue dress that I had on a mannequin, that I had there while I was painting it, but not when he was there. It is also a bit of a metaphor in that it represents a shadow on the office he held, or on him.
And so the Clintons hate the portrait. They want it removed from the National Portrait Gallery. They’re putting a lot of pressure on them. [Reached by phone Thursday, a spokeswoman from the National Portrait Gallery denied that.]
Of course she did. She doesn’t want to get on the wrong side of the next President of the United States!
I can’t wait until Slick Willie is back in the White House. This time around, he’ll have all the perks without all the responsibilities. He won’t have to fly to some pedophile’s private island to get his rocks off. He can just have it delivered!
It’s not like Hillary cares anymore. She knows what he is, and she knows why she has to put up with it.
Without a shadow of a doubt.