July 18, 2006
Groped?
"Groped."
In a word overwrought with sexual harrassment dogma and victimization, that word has a very distinct social context. Most would agree to a contextual definition of groping as unwanted touching of a sexual nature, a context provided in no small part by our most recent ex-president.
Taylor Marsh is therefore quite dishonest in her hyperbolic headline, Bush Gropes Germany's Merkel.
Ever taking things out of context and folding them into a "reality-based" worldview, the four still images she includes on her site of President Bush giving German Chancellor Angela Merkel's shoulders an affectionate squeeze as he passes by on the way to his seat at the G8 summit.
Merkel does appear startled, but the lightweight outrage of American liberals who attempt to blow this into an international incident, or worse, some sort of transferred Oedipal complex is amusing to the extreme.
It betrays the mindset of a group of ersatz political bloggers with so little real substance that they are reduced to Page Six hissyfits of feigned indignation over a shoulder touch.
It becomes increasingly harder to take Taylor Marsh and her Fellow Travelers seriously on any subject of real importance.
If you have worked in Corporate America in the past ten years, you probably have taken a sexual harassment course in order to limit your employer's liability to sex harassment suits. Most contextual definitions of groping include ANY unwanted touching. Period. Not just a sexual nature. GWB probably didn't have to sit through any of that...
I do believe that there is some who are trying to make this a mountain out of a mole hill, however, I didn't see him giving anyone else back rubs at the G8 and I can't imagine anyone (outside of personal family) being that forward with the President (or getting that close) in coming up and giving him a back rub. Well maybe Blair if he ever got higher than kissing his ass...
Posted by: matt a at July 19, 2006 07:59 AMThis is totally inappropriate behavior between a male world leader and a female world leader. It doesn't matter what you call it. He is our President and should act in public and whenever he is representing us on the world stage in such a way that does not cast embarrassment on our country. It was the G8 meeeting, not Animal House.
Posted by: Romanesko at July 20, 2006 06:07 AM
