How should Gibbons’ picture look?

Friday, June 25, 2010 | 2:01 a.m.

It’s one of those things where you know you should refrain from any jokes — and yet, you cannot avert your wit. The story: The Board of Examiners approved $20,000 to pay for Gov. Jim Gibbons’ official portrait. At one point, board member Gibbons wondered, wryly, whether he should abstain. Did he mean from being governor? And if the expenditure was not approved, could we just pretend his short, unhappy but painfully memorable tenure never happened? No portrait, no governorship? Or might we have a portrait of Dorian Gray in its proper place but another one that would properly reflect the grotesquerie that has been Gibbonsworld? That would be a painting worth displaying.