El Bufon

In the Prado Museum (El Museo Prado), one of Spain´s greatest treasures, I had the chance to see several paintings by El Greco, Goya and Velasquez--of kings and queens, nativity scenes and portraits of random people both wealthy and vain enough to commission self-portraits. It was surreal to see, full-on, these works of art after reading about them ages ago in an intermediate Spanish class. But there was one by Velasquez that didn´t make my textbook in high school.
Velasquez was a royal painter commissioned by the king to paint pictures of the family and court. He did a series of them on the court jesters (bufones) and my tour guide, Susana, prefaced the painting by saying: ¨This is the twin brother of someone I think you all know quite well...¨¨ I turn towards the picture, and it´s GW Bush staring me in the face, furrowed brow and all!
Susana: ¨Who can tell me who this is? Dont worry-the Prado is not wire-tapped.¨
The group: nervous giggles
Susana: Es el presidente de su pais, no? Es mi presidente tambien. Es el presidente del mundo! (it´s your president, isn´t it? Well, he´s my president now, too. He´s the president of the world!)
My first encounter with US haters? Well, I survived and laughed my heart out.
El Bufon aka GW Bush--hey, I didn´t say it. It was Velasquez.