George W. Bush is reportedly sitting on a humiliating portrait of Donald Trump — one he painted himself and refuses to let anyone see — even as he stays publicly silent about the current president, according to a blistering new book.
Author Jacob Weisberg, the former Slate editor and CEO who once compiled the bestselling "Bushisms" books mocking the 43rd president's verbal gaffes, is now "taking aim at Bush's silence" in his latest work, "Profiles in Cowardice: A Study of Collaboration in the Trump Era." In an interview with The Intelligencer's Michael Calderone promoting the book, Weisberg said Bush belongs among Trump's enablers — not because of anything he's done, but because of everything he hasn't said.
"There's sins of commission and sins of omission," Weisberg told Calderone, placing Bush firmly in the second category, even as Trump "dismantled USAID," the agency that helped run PEPFAR, the global HIV/AIDS program Bush himself launched.
Weisberg claims Bush has privately "painted a really ugly picture of Trump, which he won't show to anybody," while publicly channeling his feelings into safer subjects like wounded veterans and immigrants.
"He's expressing all of his feelings through painting, this kind of art therapy," he explained. "He's trying to talk about politics and express his feelings without stating them explicitly." Weisberg likened it to "The Picture of Dorian Gray," where, he said, "truth is in the picture."
Weisberg argued Bush is using his post-presidency as cover. "Bush is hiding behind, I think, a shibboleth which is that presidents have to completely remove themselves from ever commenting," he said, noting other former presidents have spoken up when they felt it mattered. "Bush could have done that, and he should have done that," Weisberg told Calderone, "but he won't say Trump's name."