And this image wouldn’t sit well across from a fashion spread in a slick magazine unless Uli Oompah, or whichever Shaman of Shmata, decided caricatured snippets of George W. would be ‘fabulous’ girding a supermodel’s attenuated loins. It wouldn’t play in the downtown galleries unless its creator worked in soft crayon at a state hospital or had come to an unfortunate end in a chic locale (gunplay in Burkina Faso, asphyxiation in Tibet, decapitation in Hicksville.)

Political art wouldn’t find its way into a political campaign, although friends of the Friends Of might print up a few million copies of a drawing depicting a certain opponent ritualistically sacrificing livestock ( overweight livestock) and mail them to the undecided. This sort of picture seldom shows up on cable TV chat shows or flat screen computer monitors – rarely at the multiplex or the checkout counter.

So how can you really be certain that what you’ve got is the real article? If you can imagine walking into the CEO of Citibank’s office and seeing a signed copy of the art impeccably hung on the wall behind his desk, you know you’ve been had.