God, I miss Obama .... total class on the portraits

[Botany]

The arts have always been central to the American experience. They provoke thought, challenge our assumptions, and shape how we define our narrative as a country.

Thanks to Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, generations of Americans -- and young people from all around the world -- will visit the National Portrait Gallery and see this country through a new lens. These works upend the notion that there are worlds where African Americans belong and worlds where we don't. And that's something Michelle and I hope we contributed to over the eight years we were so privileged to serve you from the White House.

They'll walk out of that museum with a better sense of the America we all love. Clear-eyed. Big-hearted. Inclusive and optimistic.

And I hope they'll walk out more empowered to go and change their worlds.

- Barack

[RKP5637]

1. Amazing, how we could go from Obama, to this pile of sh**! n/t

[hlthe2b]

4. yeah... that's the key to the SHOCK DOCTRINE... the extremes from complacency to full on panic

It succeeds if we are left paralyzed and for all the positive "self-talk" and cheer leading we might do, that is a damn hard thing to fight.

[onecent]

7. Isn't this the truth!!!

[redstatebluegirl]

2. I so miss them, the class, the grace, the intelligence.

How in the hell did we end up with this bunch of mental midgets?

[brush]

5. May I add a couple of adjectives: crooks, liars, cheats and traitors. OK, I added four...

instead or two but I could've kept on going.

[LanternWaste]

3. I like the portraits. A lot.

I like the portraits. A lot.

But I get the flavor-of-the-day desire to criticize it. We're a nation of people much more invested in voicing our opposition to something... anything, than in solidarity and celebration of achievement.

[NCTraveler]

6. Your binary argument falls short.

Pete Souza will have a lot of his work hanging. I think he is a brilliant artist. I can hold that thought and think these portraits are horrid at the same time. Pete Souza work will show the President and the First Lady in a much better manner.

The beauty of art. It's in the eye of the beholder. You are actually criticizing the critics with binary thoughts that cannot be realized in reality.