Althouse: With all this talk of Al Gore's inappropriate massage, have we forgotten about George Bush's inappropriate massage?!

July 3, 2010

With all this talk of Al Gore's inappropriate massage, have we forgotten about George Bush's inappropriate massage?!

Let's get matters into proportion, people.

30 comments:

mesquito said...: No comment until I read the police report.; 7/3/10, 3:22 PM
lucid said...: I did have a fair lot of strong criticisms of Bush when he was in office, but I must say he was certainly not robotic, and he seems more like a real person.

Plus, the only things that have actually helped the financial crisis were intiated on his watch, e.g. TARP.; 7/3/10, 3:24 PM
MnMark said...: Boy the lefties really miss Bush, don't they?; 7/3/10, 3:30 PM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/3/10, 3:45 PM
Unknown said...: Ah, yes, I can still hear the fellow travelers screaming.

The woman was smiling and laughing. She liked him (that was the part that really galled them). She was having fun (another concept antithetical to Leftist hearts (like the Grinch, 2 sizes too small)) with it the way he did.; 7/3/10, 3:52 PM
Bob_R said...: I bet she still has the dress in a ziplock bag.

WV: pashin (not); 7/3/10, 4:08 PM
dbp said...: I wonder if the German Chancellor tried to rape Bush after he was finished with the massage?; 7/3/10, 4:11 PM
AllenS said...: Was there a police report?; 7/3/10, 4:14 PM
save_the_rustbelt said...: Is it possible Gore does not understand the difference between a licensed massage therapist and a hooker from a massage parlor?

Yeah, probably.; 7/3/10, 4:17 PM
jaed said...: Or perhaps a staffer didn't understand he was supposed to book a "masseuse", and called the hotel for a massage therapist instead. Classic misunderstanding. Hilarity ensues.

I wonder how the whole thing would have gone down if the client involved hadn't been Gore. Would she have gone to the police, feeling less intimidated by a less powerful man? Would her friends have been more supportive if the man weren't "Mister Global Warming"? She says she was afraid his security guards might harm her if she fought... if it had been an ordinary hotel guest, would she have klonked him over the head with a table lamp?; 7/3/10, 4:21 PM
Mark said...: It's easy to assume sexual assault from Republicans when you start from the premise that they are EVIL! EVIL! EVIL!

Whereas Gore was obviously simply misunderstood, and any DNA that may actually have slipped out was simply a matter of some massage oil being transubstantiated in Al's Holy Presence.

wv: "dahary". Not going there.; 7/3/10, 4:24 PM
EnigmatiCore said...: Devilish Ann.; 7/3/10, 4:27 PM
Anonymous said...: Wow... I can't believe the Kosbots posted this video to try to draw some equivalence between Gore's act of attempted rape and a somewhat awkward but entirely innocent action by W.

I used to be a Leftist once. There are things that Kos says that I can relate to, and sometimes agree with. But using this video as some sort of defense of Gore is just disgusting.

I'm glad that I don't read that Democrat shit anymore. Now I see that Kos and the other hardcore Leftist bloggers are nothing but devious and dishonest at the core.; 7/3/10, 4:40 PM
Geoff Matthews said...: I don't think that she liked it.
I think it is clear that she didn't like it.
I think it is clear that Bush stopped as soon as she made it clear that she didn't like it.

I don't like being touched by people I'm not close to. I wouldn't like it if someone did that to me. But I wouldn't mistake it for sexual harassment. What Gore is accused of doing, and what Bush is recorded as doing, are two entirely different things.; 7/3/10, 4:44 PM
Bill said...: The way I remember seeing it the first time, it was cringe-inducing. The way her shoulders tensed up when he put his hands on her and she raises her arms as if to push him away. It seemed like he thought it was funny and she didn't.

Watching it again she clearly sees him coming. And when she raises her arms, it's a sort of robotic gesture, and then she smiles almost as though they're sharing some inside joke.

Now I'm not sure how to classify this. Was this really a faux pas on his part or was there something more to the story?; 7/3/10, 4:45 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: That massage may have been the idea of Bush's State Deparment. But it was an epic fail like Hillary Clinton's misspelled "Russian re-set button". Heh.; 7/3/10, 4:56 PM
Trooper York said...: Well Laura Bush knows why the whole thing happened with Merkel.

It was an honest mistake.; 7/3/10, 4:57 PM
wind.rider said...: Nope, didn't evoke any poodle imagery here. Goofiness, yeah. Poodleness, nope.

tw: ourdles. George had ourdles of fun goofin on Angela.; 7/3/10, 5:00 PM
Synova said...: I'm not touchy.

I know people who are touchy and who do exactly this sort of on-the-shoulders thing when they walk behind you.

It's not meant to be invasive and it's not worth fussing over.

And are you all serious? KOS is using this to defend Gore?

Bush slapped a vollyball player on the ass, too.; 7/3/10, 5:01 PM
Anonymous said...: I think Kos should apologize for making this equivalency. Attempted rape is serious and isn't something to trivialize; it's certainly nothing like W giving Merkel a two-second shoulder rub as a joke.

Plus, doesn't Kos generally support the Feminist point-of-view? Making this equivalency is very anti-feminist IMHO.

In fact, Althouse, why don't you call on Kos directly to apologize?; 7/3/10, 5:11 PM
rhhardin said...: She needs a No Trespassing sign.; 7/3/10, 5:41 PM
Ralph L said...: Hey, loosen up, Angie baby!

wv - tramnect - so much for the vaunted German train system.; 7/3/10, 5:48 PM
Meerkat said...: From the link, it appears to be about Michelle Obama touching the queen (Queen?), not anything to do with Gore.; 7/3/10, 6:41 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Kos didn't make the connection! I did! I want credit for the joke. This isn't a criticism of Kos.

At the link is an article from last year: "For all the wingnuts complaining about Michelle Obama putting her arm around the Queen (a mutual act, by the way), here’s a flashback to July, 2006, when George W. Bush gave German Chancellor Angel Merkel a most unwelcome massage."; 7/3/10, 6:53 PM
Opus One Media said...: there is sooooo much about bush that is unforgetable...hard as we try.; 7/3/10, 7:59 PM
David said...: The telling detail was that Bush had to stand behind the chair for six minutes before moving.; 7/3/10, 8:56 PM
showbiz111 said...: This is sooo like the leftwing media trying to excuse Obama's bowing and scraping before foreign tyrants that in order to show Bush bowed too, they put on a photo of Bush bending his head in front of a foreign tyrant, except he was inclining in order to receive a medal. Now we have a faux pas neck massage being equated to Gore's grabbing a masseur's hand to his nether region. I would think the more appropriate comparison would be to Clinton/Paula, not Bush/Merkel. But I doubt Kos would want to remind its readers (sic) of Clinton's pecadillos.; 7/4/10, 8:17 AM
Anonymous said...: Bush slapped a volleyball player on the ass, too.

Did he? I thought she wanted him to but he wouldn't do it. You're talking about the two female US volleyball players at the Olympics, right?; 7/4/10, 9:16 AM
Methadras said...: Leftards and their moral equivalency failures. How can you people get anymore pathetic?; 7/4/10, 2:09 PM
AST said...: The video kept cutting out before he got her up on the table.; 7/4/10, 7:30 PM