Michelle Obama's Official White House Portrait Unveiled

HAHAHAHAHAHAH. What the fuck? It doesn't even look like her.




Oh. So it's not supposed to. So I guess it isn't a portrait then.

So your understanding of art is roughly from the late 16th century, possibly very early 17th. How unusually progressive of you!

It looks more like one of the daughters. Then again that is a screenshot from a T.V broadcast so perhaps seeing it live would help.

This would make a good portrait:

So basically portraits don't have to look like who they are supposed to PORTRAY now. I'm just going to call a shit artist a shit artist.

Point to the king, please.

Fuck political dynasties in the ass with a thermonuclear chainsaw. We need a broader selection of people in politics, not a handful of families running things.

But that's racist!

Here's one from the same artist.

On one hand, I agree.

On the other hand, isn't it shortsighted to say an intelligent, qualified candidate shouldn't be allowed to hold an office simply because their spouse or relative already has? FDR shouldn't have been president because Teddy got there first? Should Serena Williams not be allowed to play tennis because Venus already has?

Liar.

Looks like something from Heritage Corner.

Don't nobody live or die on the basis of a tennis match. As for FDR, if you look up one of his primary challengers in 1932, you'll see that Al Smith had essentially the same positions as FDR. His big handicap over FDR was that he was a Catholic. Take FDR out of the picture, and Al stands a chance.

I'm old enough to remember when people thought that George HW Bush was such a horrifically bad President that no other member of the Bush family could ever be President. Now, imagine that in 2028 one of the Trump spawn decides to run for President. Are you willing to bet that he/she will be a better President than Trump? Are you willing to bet that had Hillary been barred from running for President that Elizabeth Warren wouldn't have ran?

If I had seen the picture before the article I wouldn't have known it was supposed to be her.

It doesn't look like her.

FDR was Teddy's 5th cousin.

Teddy also died in 1919.

Yes there should be a limit on relatives running for President. In 2008 we had a situation where we would have had President Bush, President Clinton, President Bush, President Clinton if Hillary had won in 2008. Even with Obama interrupting Clinton if she had won in 2016 it would be bad.

Maybe we don't need a blanket ban but a 20 year ban. If your spouse or immediate family was POTUS you've got to wait 20 years before you can run for POTUS.

POTUS is more important than tennis.

Givencthe choice, I'd take Jeb or Hillary or a bullet in the brain over Trump.

Nah. If that's what the people want, why can't they have it? Is a few decades of Bushes and Clintons sitting in the oval office any worse than a few decades of unrelated Koch and Soros puppets taking turns in the White House so long as they've got different surnames?

I noticed you didn't list 'dying in a fire'

No, it doesn't look like her. It's very impressionistic, and the dress seems to be more important than the person. I don't like it.

What Asshole-who-started-the-thread doesn't realize is that each portrait was done by a different artist.

It's the dog.

I think what we need is parties that don't rely so heavily on name recognition despite the obvious benefits of it. Cleary the dems lost the last election because they allowed a dynasty to continue and their voters didn't want it. The republican party did clearly say no to another Bush child and it did work for them. The outcome might have been clearly different if it were Bush vs Clinton last election. That would have been the race to see who bored their party the least.

I think last election did a big part in showing dynasties are not a guarantee in today's elections. Both parties had better take notes because there are still Bush family of the right age and falling back on them would probably be a mistake for them.

Ah, Velazquez - clever bastid!

I would say you could just shorten that to assholes but we have so many roaming about.

Much as I abhor the thought of hereditary political power, I'd rather we get to vote for whom we want. If that's a person who's the wife/son/daughter/cousin/whatever of a previous officeholder, so be it.

On the portrait: I don't care for the style, and don't think it's a very good likeness of Michelle Obama. But if that's what she wants...

Scathing social commentary, perhaps?

Sorry, I left my "things pretentious art twats say" podcast on overnight and I'm not right in the head yet. Twelve more vodkas.

Sure, if you want to guarantee Trump's second term.

Yeah. True. Conservatives would come out in droves to vote if a black female with the last name Obama ran for president. South Carolina would probably secede again.

One can only hope

One can only hope.