Does art imitate life? Does life imitate art? They’re interesting questions, to be sure, especially in the context of 21st century America, where real art is confined to a store in the mall, while television and popular film usurps its place — if not its function — in our lives.

Yes, art does imitate life and life art, but today it’s not a case of David’s “Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon I and Coronation of the Empress Josephine in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris on 2 Dec 1804” imitating that specific event, or of a man’s life imitating Stephen Dedalus’. Rather, it is a case of reality TV imitating life and life imitating big-budget Jerry Bruckheimer action movies.

Sad though it is, Hollywood movies, TV shows and Top 40 radio are the “art” of our time, a fact that bastardizes and degrades the word. But it is art — it reflects our world, and is imitated by it.

Nowhere is this imitation more apparent than in the Action-drama-unintentional-black comedy-with-a-good-God-fearing-Christian message blockbuster that is the executive wing of our national government.

George W. Bush imitates the American approximation of art in every law he passes, war he declares, word he stumbles over and pretzel he chokes on.

Nowhere is contemporary American bastard art more pronounced than in our cinema. We love our movies — the violent, kill the communist/nazi/people-that-look-different-from-us action flicks with big explosions, tacked-on love stories, and heroes devoid of personality but always victorious.

Since Bush took office, our county’s history has read like the script of such a movie. First, like the teaser segment before the theme song of a James Bond movie, we had Sept. 11, setting the stage for what was to come. Then, our hero (loosely defined here) did his best Charles Bronson impression and bucked the system, in this case the United Nations, to start two wars on the basis of his heroic hunch. As the hero was busy playing war and laying the groundwork for a quagmire not even Rambo could fight his way out of, the economy went to hell as a result of the one domestic action he ever took. And this has just been in three years.

Nonstop action and mindless violence with little regard for the consequences are not the only cinema staples Bush has imitated in office. We’ve seen our fair share of love subplots too. We’ve seen Bush’s love for Jesus, his love for pre-emptive strikes, and his love for faulty intelligence. We’ve seen Tony Blair’s love for American power, the Bush daughters’ love for fake IDs and prescription drugs, and Jacques Chirac’s love for Laura Bush’s hand. Not even a Woody Allen movie could compete with all that.

But it’s in more than just action sequences that this presidential blockbuster imitates “Armageddon” and “Wag the Dog.” Many of the devices that keep the movie plot moving, either toward a grander explosion or final confrontation, are at work here, aiming for re-election and cheap oil.

Often in action movies the heroes and villains seem to walk into death at every opportunity, only to inexplicably emerge completely unscathed. In the past three years, Bush has done the same.

Just as Indiana Jones should have died when his tank went over the edge of a canyon in “The Last Crusade,” Bush’s mission, that is, to take over the oil-rich parts of the world in the name of God and country, should have been derailed when his cocaine abuse was discovered. And when he led us into a war with Iraq on the slanderous pretense of weapons of mass destruction, only to find absolutely nothing.

And when he cut social programs for the poor so the rich could get a tax break. And when he did nothing to bolster the failing economy. And when he allocated $87 billion to Iraq while the state governments in this country drifted off into financial and social oblivion. And when he overtly gave multibillion-dollar war contracts to private corporations who just happened to donate lavishly to the GOP and his campaign.

Indy didn’t inexplicably cheat death so many times in a trilogy, much less one episode.

It seems there’s just one staple of American “art” that Bush hasn’t practiced yet: the happy ending. With American soldiers dying every day in Iraq, criticism ringing from all over the world and this nation’s social programs sinking like the Titanic as its deficit rises like box office receipts from the James Cameron film of the same name, it doesn’t look like he’ll master it.