George W. Bush’s leaked paintings may seem out of character, but they remind us that he is first and foremost a realist

Our own Morgan Meis in The Smart Set:

George W. Bush has finally found WMDs. That's what a commenter on the website Gawker recently noted. But these WMDs are Watercolors Mostly of Dogs. George W. Bush, you see, has taken up painting. His favorite subject is dogs. It is said that he has already painted over 50 paintings of dogs. He also paints landscapes and, disturbingly, scenes of himself in the bath and shower. Luckily, these are not really nudes but mostly studies of his own feet.

The idea of George W. Bush, Painter has unleashed a great wave of amusement. Even Bush is in on the joke. He quipped that it will be hard for many people to accept him as an artist when they don't even think he can read. An anonymous hacker hacked into Bush's cell phone and then released the pictures Bush had snapped of the canvases he’s been working on. This inspired Bush himself officially to release photos of his paintings. For better or worse, George W. Bush has never been one to hide in shame.

The paintings are not nearly as bad as you might want them to be. In fact, they show some natural talent. Bush has picked up, in a relatively short period of time, the basics of handling a brush and depicting scenes in three-dimensional space. If nothing else, it’s one hell of an advertisement for the woman (Bonnie Floor) who taught him to paint.

Yet, the more you look at Bush's paintings, the more you see a painterly sensibility. He has, for instance, an innate flair for perspective and point-of-view.

More here.