October 17, 2006
Bush shook his hand and then “turned to an aide nearby, who squirted a big dollop of hand sanitizer in the president’s hand.”
Writes Barack Obama (in his new book "The Audacity of Hope," which Michiko Kakutani loves).
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64 comments:
The Left sure does love Obama.
In the end he is just a well spoken liberal who despises Bush's idea of an "ownership society."
How gross is that.
Bush then offered Obama some of the sanitizer.
(“Good stuff,” he quotes the president as saying, as he offered his guest some. “Keeps you from getting colds.”)
And here's a quote about the idiocy of 'handlers' for candidates.
And [Obama] recounts a trip he took through Illinois with an aide, who scolded him for asking for Dijon mustard at a T.G.I. Friday’s, worried the senator would come across as an elitist; the confused waitress, he adds, simply said: “We got Dijon if you want it.”
Who the hell thinks Dijon mustard is elitist in this day and age? That aide should be fired for being a dope.
How much of the currently lame political landscape can be blamed on aides giving that kind of crappy advice, I wonder?
Even more stupidly, the aide made that comment in front of the waitress! To paraphrase The Bard, "First, we must kill all the handlers...."
(icepick) - and the flu bug and all kinds of nasty things crazy people would do. I suppose spitting on one's hand then shaking hands with a despised President would be better than trying to shoot him or stab him. The thing about Liberals is their lack of common sense.
Go back and read Althouses comment. Then read your comment.
Does your comment address the issue at all?
No....
Relax. I actually read the article that Althouse linked. You obviously did not. If you did, you might find out that the article was about more than hand soap.
Besides, we all know that Obama's anecdote was designed to imply that Bush is washing his hands because Obama is a black man. We all know that is total Bull and Obama should be called out on the carpet for playing race politics by writing the story to reflect that implication.
I have trouble believing that this actually happened as described.
If Obama was the last person Bush shook hands with and then the two of them were standing around and Bush's aide offered the hand sanitizer, I think that that would be fine. Hand sanitizer is a good idea if you're the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, and you just shook that hands of a few dozen people.
Freeman, that was my reaction too. It's ludicrous to think that Bush shook, sanitized, shook, sanitized, . . . Doesn't
he have better ways to spend his day?
I wonder why Obama was last in line -- and who was in front of him? Maybe it was someone sneezing the whole time they were there!
Freeman, the story in the article just says it was a meet and greet, not how many people were there or whether Bush did that after shaking everyone's hand.
Goesh, I have no idea what you're talking about.
Zeb Quinn, we don't know how Obama describes the incident in his book. It is mentioned without context in the NYT's piece with a single quote. You shouldn't give the story more meaning until you know how Obama actually described it, instead of the NYT's abreviated contextless recounting of the story.
Freeman, the story in the article just says it was a meet and greet, not how many people were there or whether Bush did that after shaking everyone's hand.
I'm well aware of that. I was providing an example of a possible scenario in which using the sanitizer would be well within the bounds of etiquette and could also be described by Obama as it was.
I've gotten to the point of, when using a public washroom, having the paper towel ready before I wash my hands, and then using my paper-towel wrapped hand to turn off the water and open the door out of the washroom. I've seen too many people doing things that should result in immediate hand-washing who don't bother, blithely touching all the surfaces the rest of us handle, that I've become rather fussy about this.
If I was shaking hands with the public all day, I'd be tempted to lightly run a propane torch over my mitt afterwards.
And I don't get a lot of colds, flu, hepatitis, or dysentery, so it must work.
My take on the Obama adulation is that the left is terribly excited to have found a technically black politician who speaks well. He's all educated and articulate and composed (like countless white politicians) but he's BLACK! WOW!
Boy. Hand sanitizer?
Could Bush be any more evil?
I think not.
Ann -
This post and thread is another example of you managing to extract the worst from an already pretty embarassing group of commenters.
Give them another thread about Air America. You know you want to!
I'm glad Doyle is around to act as the conscience for a generation. Otherwise, we'd all be lost, thinking ourselves wise and wonderful, not the pathetic beasts he knows us to be.
Sooo, Obama took drugs because he was a race victim and then ends up in the Senate where white people are still victimizing him! That damn America!
He is a skinny, soft spoken guy, nice enough in an inoffensive way--but certainly not a rock star or, for heaven's sakes, a rainbow.
And he's sort of against welfare and sort of for a vigorous WOT and sort of....snzzzzz.
I have nothing against the guy, I just don't know much about him. Obama looks decent enough, like someone who can't quite figure out what all the fuss is about. He seems keen to stay the hell away from the rabid Left, which is fine by me.
The fact that he is embraced as the savior of the Democratic Party doesn't say much about him, and a lot about the Democratic Party.
Henry is right about anecdotes and projection - it was Condi who whispered in Bush's ear to beware of sticky melon juice and the smell of chittlins on certain hands, in cahoots with an Aide who quickly stepped in, squirted the sanitizer and diverted Liberals away from issues of national significance. Keep your eye on the prize, don't give up the polemics of perception... la la la
If Obama's goal in sharing his little anecdote was to make me think less of Bush through his implied accusation of racsim and thereby throw my support behind Obama, it has backfired. If true, this ploy lowers my estimation of the Senator, not the President.
The last thing I think we want or need is a 'victimologist' in the White House. We already went through the VRWC, do we really want more paranoia in the Oval Office?
This all assumes the veracity of the alleged comment. I have not read the book or the article - just going by the gist of the rest of the comments.
Barack Obama had a book? Why? Did he do something special?
bUnlike Ann, I don't think Ms. Kakutani loved Obama's new book. Instead, she praises his earlier memoir, Dreams From My Father (1995), but (stripped of the soft-pedaling) has some unkind things to say about his current book.
In terms of his strengths, she says that he's the "rare politician who can actually write — and write movingly and genuinely about himself." According to Kakutani, The Audacity of Hope, his current book, “is much more of a political document. Portions of the volume read like outtakes from a stump speech, and the bulk of it is devoted to laying out Mr. Obama’s policy positions on a host of issues, from education to health care to the war in Iraq." Outtakes from a stump speech, packaged with standard-issue politician-talk about "policy" sounds pretty dreary to me. The only parts of it she likes are the bits where the "narrative voice in this volume is recognizably similar to the one in 'Dreams From My Father.'” So, if that's what you want, just go read the first book and skip this one.
Kakutani, like many at the NYT, is obviously impressed by Sen. Obama, and she is clearly trying to say something nice about his new book. But all she can come up with is the comment that, while his new book lacks the "searching candor of the author’s first book," nevertheless "Mr. Obama strives in these pages to ground his policy thinking in simple common sense." If that's the best she can come up with, I'd say that her review ends up more as an exercise in damning with faint praise than the love-fest that Ann suggests.
Common sense is, of course, a frame of mind that comes in handy in politics as elsewhere. But it's not saying much if that's all that his policy prescriptions have going for them. Nor is it necessarily all that helpful that Obama's strength is an ability to "write movingly and genuinely about himself." By all accounts, Obama is a smart guy. But he's going to have to get beyond himself as a theme if he is ever going to have appeal beyond the usual suspects among the Dems. For all the hype about getting beyond partisanship, etc., I haven't seen anything that suggests that he's done anything since he arrived in the Senate to do that. Instead, apart from the occasional anodyne speech, as far as I am aware, he seems to vote pretty much along partisan lines.
So the comment can simply be an observation, similiar to abstaining from Dijon mustard, as Obama's aide recommended.
However, people on both sides seemed to jump on the notion that the comment had a specific subtext
This is one of the most naive conclusions I have seen on this board. TO conclude that the anecdote was included in the article as a mere observation and nothing more is either idiocy or a bad attempt at spin.
As others have stated, it seems wise and normal for someone shaking hundreds of hands to wash their hand at some point. So without the racial implication, how is this observation at all interesting or worth noting.
Senator Obama must use sanitizer himself. In a June 2, 2006 press release to Stephen Colbert:
"Second, use hand sanitizer after the Pumphandle. Lots of germs there. I cannot stress this enough."
http://obama.senate.gov/press/060602-obama_to_stephen_colbert_howd_your_convention_speech_go/print.php
He said something like, after eating lunch with Obama he came away thinking that this is what scouts must have felt like when they saw Alex Rodriguez in high school.
Ouch. Nowadays, can you get more "jinx!" than that? So now, Obama will put up good numbers during the summer, but when it really counts, he'll go 0-fer-whatever. Great.
Ann:
I know this is a little off-topic, but aren't there too many "divine's" on the masthead? It doesn't look right, from an artistic standpoint. Don't we have some other glowing comments we can put up there?
Something like:
"Ah nevah sanitize my hands after shmoozing with the fabulous Ann Althouse." - G.W. Bush
I've got "The Divine Ms." and "The Divine Mme." What I really need is "The Divine Miss." So, no, not too much. Not enough.
Vous avez toujours raison, Madame le Professeur.
Sloan, I think the anecdote is likely included because it makes Obama look "real" and Bush look artificial, just as the mustard anecdote makes Obama look "real" and the the handler look artificial.
But I don't buy your racialist reading of the subtext.
I agree that is another possible implication from the anecdote. However, it proves the point that the anecdote had more meaning than just a simple observation.
Wow. Some people on here are mentally ill.
Obama's story, if anything, relates how Bush is so comfortable with himself that he wouldn't even consider how one could view his sanitizer move as offensive. He's also more intelligent and respectful of science than portrayed in the press (dumb cowboys don't use hand sanitizer because they fear germs). I do not see any racial overtones in the anecdote.
One could say that both stories suggest that handlers and aides prevent politicians from acting naturally.
"And [Obama] recounts a trip he took through Illinois with an aide, who scolded him for asking for Dijon mustard at a T.G.I. Friday’s, worried the senator would come across as an elitist"
Now, Grey Poupon, that's another story.
Are you commenters really this hate filled and immediately dismissive of anything even center-left? Do you always immediately dismiss someone's veracity upon knowing so little?...I don't see Ann dishing out hate and therefore I don't quite get it.
This is a ridiculous accusation. I see nothing "hate filled" about the debate over the article or Obama. It is a fair debate on whether Obama is "overrated" and the use of race in such observations.
Besides, you reveal your charlatanism by attempting to pander to the blog administrator.
It is a fair debate on whether Obama is "overrated"
Right. Like Donovan McNabb was "overrated."
Politicians should be sanitising their hands frequently when dealing with the public, thanks to the number of hands shaken and the desire to shake that hand means that people that would normally be home in bed or avoid the shake will do it to be near the "star".
A politician shaking hands with another pol, especially one as charismatic and hungry as Obama, needs to be especially sure to sanitise, as you have two disease vectors interacting.
The people complaining about the "artificiality" of the Pres having an aide holding sanitiser... wow. I'm shocked at your provincialism and ignorance. Y'all are aware that POTUS has a rather significant security detail, right? That POTUS also has a rather serious number of aides with him at all times (the NSA and the guy with the football being but two well known examples). That POTUS has rather extreme ceremonial duties and just cannot "duck out" of a room. Nearly everywhere he goes a band announces him!
People who are running for Congress, just Congress, typically travel with several political aides (one policy, one image, driver, maybe security). Senators, major Mayors, state wide candidates in large states, etc have much bigger retinues. Here we're talking about a position where candidates have multiple buses just for the press following them and where the sitting President has his own 747 to carry staff and reporters. But that he has an aide to pass him some sanitiser is weird or out of touch?
Right. Like Donovan McNabb was "overrated."
YES, another sports metaphor. Who is Obama more like, A-Rod or Donovan McNabb? Discuss.
Who's Donovan McNabb?
Did he invent hand sanitizer?
Does he carry it for Bush?
Or does he give Obama his mustard?
Donovan McNabb is the QB for the Philadelphia Eagles, who Rush Limbaugh said was overrated* because he was black and (thus) the media wanted him to do well.
* This turned out to be wrong.
I know. Just havin' fun.
I thought the anecdote really made Bush look bad. You shouldn't use hand sanitizer right in front of someone you just shook hands with. If you're really afraid of germs, just be careful not to touch your face with your hands until you've had a chance to wash/sanitize them.
As for telling the anecdote, I think the decision to do that was to make Bush look bad, and possibly to (deniably) make him look racist.
Good Evening Ladies and Germs -- say, did you hear that A-Rod is the new Overseer of the House Page Program. Denny Hastert is convinced he won't hit on the pages as he hasn't hit all year. Thank you very much, I'll be here all night!
Interesting. My wife and I are going down to Mexico to work at an orphanage next week.
She mentioned that we needed to get hand sanitizer.
Now I know why. Good stuff.
A-Rod has become tragically underrated.
His numbers fell off from those he put up in SEA and TEX, but not much more than you'd expect given the difference in parks.
This year was a disappointment (esp. defensively), but he's overly hated b/c he makes $25M per.
The NYC sports media is dumber than a bag of hammers, but much nastier.
If you shake someone's hand and then immediately make a show of sanitizing, yes that's pretty insulting. But it reads like Obama was at the end of the line, he and Bush shook hands, and then Bush got the goop and offered some to Barack. That seems almost friendly!
There's no information on the other people -- maybe they were all sick, or it was cold and flu season.
I'm wondering if it's a comment on the absurdity of all politicians -- putting their health at risk just to meet and greet. It's interesting to see the various reactions by posters.
President should bump fists
Even better, maybe the prez should just do the bump with everybody!
Love that visual.
And no, I can't resist this:
"...Research has shown that hand sanitizers can be as effective as hand washing only in certain situations. The type of soil which may be present on hands can significantly alter the effectiveness of hand sanitizers. Because dirt, food, or anything else on your hands can make the alcohol in sanitizers less effective, it is important to first wash your hands with soap and water.
Some confusion occurred when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released the 2002 guidelines "recommending alcohol-based gel as a suitable alternative to hand washing for health-care personnel in health-care settings." Many healthcare workers must routinely clean their hands multiple times per hour while moving between patients. The use of alcohol gels by staff has been shown to favorably impact hand-cleansing adherence due to time saved over traditional hand washing methods. However, the guidelines apply only to hospitals and clinics. These are not appropriate for and do NOT apply to those people working in foodservice settings or with the general public. The primary reason is that the types and levels of soil on the hands are quite different between these different settings. ..."
Ooh-ick vh: femdhqbm
Am I reading this post/article/comment discussion correctly? That Obama, and Democrat supporters, are trying to make a scandal out of Bush using hand sanitizer after shaking a whole line of people's hands?
You have GOT to be effing kidding me.
Re: "maybe the prez should just do the bump with everybody"
1. Nah. Do the Hustle!
2. Learn to bow.
Dagnabit blogger bazfaz @g&*ff+#!.
Do The Hustle:
http://franklarosa.com/vinyl/Exhibit.jsp?AlbumID=55
Shaking hands is a disgusting practice and needs to be done away with. A respectful bow is much more sanitary.
And everyone should carry around hand sanitizer, especially city dwellers!
As for Obama? I always picture a scene from Monty Python's "The Life of Brian" where Brian (Graham Chapman) is being followed against his will by hundreds of people who are convinced that he's the Messiah.
Something about the glowing, bootlicking praise sort of turns my stomach. Not just the praise of Obama but of ANY politician. They're politicians, not kings or idols or rock stars. Americans shouldn't be worshipful of its public servants.
"You are all individuals!"
"Yes! We are all individuals!
Lord help me, now I'm having '70s flashbacks of doing the bump AND the hustle--which might be all right, except that it involves an odd mixture of the Jackson 5 ("Dancing Machine"_ and Van McCoy ("The Hustle") running through my mind.
This can't possibly be a good thing.
Far better to dwell upon Issues Of Hygiene.
Some people apparently haven't learned the sad lesson of what happened to the Golgafrinchans when they got rid of their telephone sanitizers. Fear not, our president has not! This is exactly what I demand from the leader of the free world: every day doing his part to save the population of the Earth from extinction!
DaveG said
"If Obama's goal in sharing his little anecdote was to make me think less of Bush through his implied accusation of racsim and thereby throw my support behind Obama, it has backfired. If true, this ploy lowers my estimation of the Senator, not the President."
I second that
I thought the anecdote really made Bush look bad. You shouldn't use hand sanitizer right in front of someone you just shook hands with.
I think the fact that he recommended that Obama use hand sanitizer as well suggests he wasn't meant, and shouldn't be taken, as a personal affront. It is just a good health tip for anyone who shakes a lot of hands.
Anyway, if Obama wanted to make Bush look bad he should have left out the bit where Bush explained himself. It would have looked more like racism that way.
Of course you have trouble believing this story, because dear Leader doing something like this would burst the wonderfully constructed image that you've been building over the last 6 years. We can't allow that to happen.
Oh, good God.
I'm confused. Does Bush really believe that you can catch a cold from shaking hands with someone?
Doesn't he realize that's just a theory being propagated by the secularists?
Kchiker asked:
"Are you commenters really this hate filled and immediately dismissive of anything even center-left? Do you always immediately dismiss someone's veracity upon knowing so little?"
No Kchiker, I'll excuse your ignorance as you said you are only a new visitor.
In fact, IMHO the regulars here are more informed, more highly educated and more knowledgeable than almost anyplace else on earth. That said, they don't tend to grant "superstar" status to anyone. That includes Senator Obama when his real, tangible achievements to date are little more than being a minority, being obviously intelligent and being elected to the Senate.
So, why not stick around, and see for yourself than I am right?
I'm in sympathy with Bush here, and I bet most politicians in a meet-and-greet situation use hand sanitizer. I'm home with strep throat and a 102 degree fever right now, and it's most likely I caught it from a student. I use hand sanitizer after classes, I clean our classroom computer keyboards and mice with antibacterial wipes during flu season, and I ask students who are sick not to come up face to face to tell me how bad they feel. I don't have a germ fetish, I just don't have a great immune system.
And some wonder why our politics are so poisonous, when the most innocuous of details is imbued with so much meaning. It's difficult to assess Obama as as serious man when such a de minimus detail is intended to illustrate so much.
It's a good thing we don't have serious issues to think about so we can preseverate over whether the president is a germophobic racist...which nearly half us of are sure he is guilty, among other numerous and overly-spoken of crimes.
"Some people apparently haven't learned the sad lesson of what happened to the Golgafrinchans when they got rid of their telephone sanitizers"
Heh, nice HHGG reference.
But now that most of us have cell phones (and thus have no need for a telephone sanitizer), wouldn't it be great to build a "B" ark like the Golgafrinchans did, but this time, send all the government bureaucrats (and the ones in education, for that matter) out into space?
Although I'm not in the classroom this quarter, I still meet with a dozen students a day at least. I'm on day 10 of this particular bout of illness and have undoubtedly done my part to pass it on to others despite taking some precautions.
I'm with Bush on this one as well.
We keep anti-bacterial hand sanitizer in the computer clusters for us and the students. It's basic hygiene, and computer clusters with thousands of students sharing keyboards are disease factories. I fail to see anything offensive about it.
"My take on the Obama adulation is that the left is terribly excited to have found a technically black politician who speaks well. He's all educated and articulate and composed (like countless white politicians) but he's BLACK! WOW!"
Yes, I agree, since there's nothing remarkable about the man. He's just another socialist groupthink Democrat.
OhioAnne,
Let's enjoy our rare moment of symmetry. I hope you feel better soon.
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