Talke Talks – Double You

Howdy from Texas, dear readers,

What do Churchill, Hitler and George W. Bush have in common? No, I don’t want to go out to anything, if you thought that ̶ I’m not a crazy gene z-Tussi that throws all the politicians into a pot. I mean the artistic activity next to the rule: they are painters. And while Hitler was just doing out, the political skill at Churchill undoubtedly took over, although the landscapes in his pictures are quite nice to look at. At Bush it will probably be the other way around, at least that’s my view.

Eight years ago I saw an exhibition of his veteran portraits, “Portraits of Courage” in the “Bush Presidential Center” in Dallas for the first time and was quite impressed, even if something like this is difficult to admit. In my youth in Germany, George W. was considered to be persona non gratamore directly as indirectly insulted by Green Day as “American Idiot”, in the cult series “South Park”, for which you had to stay up at night, mercilessly mercilessly merciless, spurned by Hollywood greats and German moderators at the same time and last but not least sharply criticized by the director Michael Moore, whom I once admired as a teenager. Many years later I had to realize: I like the pictures of Bush. They are a bit awkward, raw, sad, dignified. Are you perhaps a kind of excuse for the American people?

It was even more surprising to find out that George W. is popular in Texas that you like to remember your time as a governor (and by “Man” I mean the most left -wing Texans I know), while more about your presidential decisions. For example, as a governor, he invested more money in school education and contributed to the fact that Texas has become the leading wind energy manufacturer. His wife Laura is praised for her philanthropical commitment, in short, in Dallas there are many proud of the couple living here. In keeping with these sentiments, the Bush Center opened in Dallas in 2013 is what is now often referred to as the “Legacy” of the former president ̶ A very expensive museum ($ 26 per person plus 10 for parking!), Which sums up and pathetically exaggerated. And I’m going back.

First I watch a transfiguring film about faith, values ​​and community, while I involuntarily remember the scratch-bundle Angela-Merkel document of the ARD from last year, in which, apart from the former Federal Minister, nobody has a nice word for the ex-chancellor, which I find extremely tasteless. I probably live in the United States for too long and long for praise and jagged. It continues with the 9/11 room. September 9, 2001 is a day that everyone who was no longer a toddler remembers. The day is particularly painful for me because at the time I lived only a few houses away from the Hamburg terrorist cell around Mohamed Atta, in Marienstraße in Hamburg-Harburg. Many months later and on the anniversary of the act of terrorist, the camera team gathered in front of the ugly building. I shower when I think about it. Fortunately, I did not mention this “fun fact” about me in the naturalization interview.

Then I see new pictures of Bush Junior, portraits of people who look at his old works in the Bush Center, sketchy, colorful, edifying, meta-reflexive. Can art make up for serious mistakes as that of the Bush Presidency again? Can he celebrate a comeback like the Taliban, which he wanted to defeat? “I know he was criticized a lot, but I think it is good,” says an older visitor to a museum employee about the 43rd president. The internet has long since forgiven the 79-year-old, his silly recent, called “Bushisms”, provide many likes, his old and now very prudent-looking statements about migration, he looks wise, good-natured, respectful, whispering with Michelle Obama confidentially. “They Misunderstimated Me,” said George W. and was probably right.