Laying on of Hands

I wasn't going to comment on the various escapades at the G-8 until I read Maureen Dowd, who managed to distill the essence of Bush, in Animal House Summit:

Reporters who covered W.’s 2000 campaign often wondered whether the Bush scion would give up acting the fool if he got to be the king.

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The open-microphone incident at the G-8 lunch in St. Petersburg on Monday illustrated once more that W. never made any effort to adapt. The president has enshrined his immaturity and insularity, turning every environment he inhabits — no matter how decorous or serious — into a comfortable frat house.

No matter what the trappings or the ceremonies require of the leader of the free world, he brings the same DKE bearing and cadences, the same insouciance and smart-alecky attitude, the same simplistic approach — swearing, swaggering, talking to Tony Blair with his mouth full of buttered roll, and giving a startled Angela Merkel an impromptu shoulder rub. He can make even a global summit meeting seem like a kegger.

Catching W. off-guard, the really weird thing is his sense of victimization. He’s strangely resentful about the actual core of his job. Even after the debacles of Iraq and Katrina, he continues to treat the presidency as a colossal interference with his desire to mountain bike and clear brush.

In snippets of overheard conversation, Mr. Bush says he has not bothered to prepare any closing remarks and grouses about having to listen to other world leaders talk too long. What did he think being president was about?

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Perhaps it’s that anti-patrician chip on his shoulder, his rebellion against a family that prized manners and diplomacy above all. But when bored or frustrated, W. reserves the right to be boorish — no matter if the setting is a gilded palace or a Texas gorge.

Vanity Fair's James Wolcott, writes at his blog about the "groping" incident (seen here, Blitz Krieg Massage, on video), in Roving Hands:

Most of the commentary I've seen regarding President Bush's impromptu shoulder-rub/aborted massage of German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the G8 summit has treated the incident as a light, wacky divertissement, much like Bush's goofball attempt to make a dramatic exit from a press conf in China only to be thwarted by a locked door. Certainly there's something intrinsically comic about a freelance prowling masseur looking for flesh to knead. Just last night I saw an episode from the Lifetime sitcom about a dating agency headed by the sensational Jane Lynch where one of the matchmakers was giving unauthorized foot rubs to clients, defending his behavior by claiming, "I can't keep track of all ten fingers." His hands see an opportunity, and they take it.

Bush's behavior crosses more boundaries, and not just because the Leader of the Free World doesn't normally lay his playful hands on the opposite sex in his high-powered public forums. Put simply, what Bush did is a very odd way for a married man to behave under most circumstances, even odder under these.

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Perhaps it was nothing more than Bush's usual privileged-snot appropriation at play. A symptom of the same syndrome that has him hanging nicknames on people, and kissing bald men on the head.

Blogger TBogg provides the practical perspective, in What Women Want:

As someone who has, you know, actually been with a woman (several in fact) I can point out that unsolicited neck-rubs as well as back-rubs aren't high on the touchy-feely list, although I will admit that they reside higher up than the ever popular boob-rub and the let-me-warm-my-hands-between-your-thighs move. And what appears to be smiling at the end might also be relief that Chester the Molester is looking elsewhere to cop a feel.

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Either way, having noticed Merkel's look of distaste at being publicly manhandled, I'm willing to bet that Bush later IM'd Dick Cheney and pronounced her a "total lez" and offered to fix her up with Mary.

And then, of course, for the last word on the subject, there's the Jon Stewart take on it all, at Merkel Madness.

See also, Hullabaloo and Firedoglake.

(Dowd article available here: Animal House Summit)

Tags: Bush, G-8, Jon Stewart, Video, Maureen Dowd, Animal House Summit