Government coverup
What is it with members of the Bush administration and covering up works of art to make them more “decent”?
First we had former Attorney General John Ashcroft’s Justice Department spending $8,000 back in 2002 in order to drape fabric strategically across the “Spirit of Justice,” a nude female statute in front of which he often conducted press conferences.
Now, Vice President Dick Cheney has appeared in front of a similar artistic re-rendering. Speaking with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Tuesday, Cheney stood in front of a digital copy of a semi-nude painting by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, which serves as a backdrop for Italian press briefings.
Turns out that earlier this summer, the government authorized the retouching of the painting so that Berlusconi wouldn’t have to appear beneath the female figure’s exposed breast.
The breast “might have upset the sensitivity of some viewers,” said the prime minister’s spokesman in Milan’s Corriere della Sera newspaper. “That breast, that little nipple, ends up right in the shots that TVs make during press conferences.”
No word on whether it was done specifically in advance of Cheney’s visit.
