Art for Al's Sake

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One of the perks of being President or Vice President is that you get to decorate your home with paintings from the National Museum of American Art. The Clintons made news when they borrowed an abstract by Willem de Kooning -- a White House first. The Gores' selections are more traditional. They may also be reflective of the vice-presidential mindset:

-- Marjorie and Little Edmund (1928), Charles Tarbell. A metaphor for powerlessness? A glum child (a Gore-ish blond!) is dandled on the knee of a large adult.

-- Peacock in the Woods (1907), Thayer & Meryman. The brilliant peacock clearly deserves to be front and center but is obscured by bothersome, less deserving foliage.

-- Street Scene, Tangier (Man Leading Calf) (circa 1910), Henry Ossawa Tanner. Another image of subservience: the calf must go wherever its master leads it -- no matter how well-implemented the calf's ideas for reinventing government.

-- Idle Hours (1895), Harry Siddons Mowbray. The title says it all.