Here is a photo of a painting the G W Bush has hanging in the Oval Office at the White House. It is one of GW's favourites. He likes to tell the story that goes with it.

He likes it because the identity projected through the Bush Administration's policies on issues from global warming to preemptive warfare, are based on the premise that Bush is a lone cowboy, rushing headlong to carry out a God-given charge.

His followers today tend to see in Bush what he sees in the painting: a brave, daring leader riding fearlessly into the unknown, striking out against unseen enemies, pulling his team behind him, seeking, in the words of Wesley's hymn, "to do my Master's will." They see him as a straight shooter and a straight talker. They take comfort in his religious faith and think he is leading us toward a mountaintop."Source

Of course the truth of the painting is somewhat different from the the romantic ideal that GWB sees. The painting is really called “Had His Start Been Fifteen Minutes Longer He Would Not Have Been Caught.”. It is of a horse thief fleeing a lynch mob carelessly ignoring the wellbeing of his stolen charge as he rides recklessly across the landscape.

Hang on a minute! It does somehow seem to fit in GWBs office afterall.

(Bene has a more thoughtful piece obn the painting and Mr Bush here.)