Perhaps the greatest impediment to having The Big Discussion between liberals and neoconservatives over the future of the republic is that we all tend to view it as a massive game of Capture the Flag. Some time back the neocons grabbed the flag and declared themselves the sole proprietors of patriotism and national identity, with the moral high ground as a bonus. Liberals have been scrabbling around ever since to prove that they have just as much claim to America, but without success. We let them paint us as boutique intellectuals who want to abolish God and marriage and the Grand Ole Opry, and if neoconservatism is currently out of favor, it’s because of the failure of their policies, not the strength of our positions.

The main reason neocons get to wear the title of Real Americans and do their Superior Dance is because while we dithered and debated and emphasized the complexity of the problems our nation faces (looking at you, Carter and Dukakis and Kerry), they cornered the market on symbolism—cowboy presidents battling Axes of Evil to protect the 9/11 widows from terrorists and gay flag-burners while the majestic eagle soars and Toby Keith and the ghost of John Wayne team up to kick lefty ass. We’ve never been able to compete with that kind of imagery and we’ve been foolish to try. The best we’ve managed is subversion and satire à la Colbert, but that’s really just our guys playing with their tools.

Speaking of Imagery: Despite their proprietorship of patriotic symbology, however, there are many neocons who feel there’s still not enough of it, that dissent and pacifism and other un-American ideas persist because we haven’t been bombarded quite enough with stock images of American gloryness. If there are people out there railing against a substandard minimum wage and the blood-price of American hegemony, it’s only because they’ve forgotten that we live in the greatest country in the world. Here’s Mount Rushmore, now shut the hell up.

Georgia painter Steve Penley is here to fill that gap with his touring exhibit of jingoistic motel art The Reconstruction of America, currently showing at the Cobb Museum of Art in Marietta through June 13, and its companion volume of the same name (Mercer University Press, 2008). The book has a foreword by Fox News’ Neil Cavuto and glowing cover blurbs by Newt Gingrich, Neal Boortz, Saxby Chambliss and Sonny Perdue, all men with a lot to say about art, to be sure. This would be like shooting fish in a barrel, if I didn’t believe in gun control.

Penley’s series consists of interpretations of portraits of iconic figures in American history (Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Franklin, both Roosevelts, Reagan on horseback) and popular culture (Marilyn, John Wayne, Warhol, Elvis, Satchmo, Bear Bryant, The Ramones pre-“Bonzo Goes to Bitburg”), along with some of the products that made America great (Coca-Cola, Wall Street and the Big Mac). Commentary linking each image to Penley’s larger point about the greatness of our nation and the triumph of our culture over the nay-sayers of the rest of the world runs throughout the book. Subtle it’s not: “The intellectuals of Europe could not be so vocal without us to defend them against dictators. They should realize that a weak America is the world’s worst nightmare. The rest of the world owes America a debt of gratitude for whatever freedoms they have.” Nor deep: “Baseball, Football, Hot dogs and Hamburgers, Pick up trucks and Coke bottles are all objects that symbolize America. These objects are Icons of American culture which give us a distinct character. These things evoke feelings of good times which we can remember even through the hard times. They are comforting.”

But then, subtlety and depth are not Penley’s intent here. He felt moved to do an homage to patriotic iconography, and to be honest, the paintings themselves aren’t that bad. Penley is an able renderer of images, certainly more so than I am, and he has a keen sense of composition and an eye for the visually dramatic, so the issue is not Penley’s qualities as a painter. What is bothersome, however, is Penley’s choice as an artist to merely recreate earlier images and compile them in a primer format, a monosyllabic sermon to the choir, crib notes for Patriotism 101. It’s art designed to go down easy, to inspire us rather than make us think, and that’s its problem. It’s like the difference between Charlie Parker and Kenny G—both can play the saxophone, but one was about creating complex and challenging art, and the other is about making music for houseplants. Good art, like good ideas, never goes down easy. It disturbs and questions and demands active participation from the viewer. Good art picks a fight; Penley’s art wants to buy you a Coke.

Other Notes: Meanwhile, in the real world, America lost one of its true patriots. On Apr. 11 Judith Krug, longtime director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom and the founder of Banned Books Week, passed away after a lengthy illness at the age of 69. A tireless defender of the First Amendment, she was at the forefront of every challenge to our right of access to books in our public and school libraries, sometimes all the way to the Supreme Court. Whenever Real Americans (doing their Superior Dance) sought to take Mark Twain and John Steinbeck and J.D. Salinger and half the freaking Newbery Award winners out of our children’s hands, Krug and her people stepped in to stop them. Whether you were a fan of Judy Blume or J.K. Rowling (and somehow miraculously didn’t become a sex maniac or a Satanist), we all owe a heap of thanks to Krug, whose commitment to our freedoms reflects the spirit of our Founding Fathers far more than any painting of Ben Franklin could—and Franklin would agree.

In the end we don’t need to play Capture the Flag, because the neocons have never actually had it. While they cling to their hollow symbology, the rest of us, liberals and true conservatives (there is a difference) alike, will be busy trading in ideas, the real currency of our nation and the real stuff of what it means to be patriotic Americans.

John G. Nettles