Bush sneaks a massage in with Angela Merkel

[dqueue]

<!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/7/17/212531/190">This</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> is just bizarre...<br><br>A DKos diarist writes: <!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>At the G-8 summit, President Bush grabs German Chancellor Angela Merkel from behind and gives her a quick massage before rushing off. Chancellor Merkel is not amused.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i></i>

[greencrow0]

Angela should never have led him on.<br><br>She was 'asking for it' by attending the G8 Summit!<br><br><!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :rollin --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/roll.gif ALT=":rollin"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <br><br>Seriously....<br><br>When is the US elite going to yank this rubby off the stage?<br><br>GC <p></p><i></i>

[anothershamus]

A while back I saw a really weird thing with Rumsfeld and Merkel. The both had the Mantis hand jive going on China CCTV9. <br>I thought it was weird so I googled them and found photos where they both were at a different conference and they had their hand under the podium and their shoulders hunched like the mantis guy from Space Ghost Coast to Coast. <br><br>I just now looked at the photos of Bush giving Merkel a shoulder massage and he looks really hypnotized.......Are Rumsfeld and Merkel alien overlords? <p></p><i></i>

[Pah]

Get a grip. <p></p><i></i>

[Seamus OBlimey]

The Bush/Blair item speaks the same.. Who here would talk to anyone like that? From behind? <p></p><i></i>

[anotherdrew]

he wasn't doing a massage, he was drying his hands off after having visited the gentlemans lounge. not the first time he's pulled something like this... <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.crooksandliars.com/posts/2006/07/18/lettermans-top-10-moments-of-george-w-bush/">see here</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br>there's something really odd in his face, at the least he looks to be flying high on something<br><!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://www.docstrangelove.com/images/bush_merkel_2.jpg" style="border:0;"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--><br>or was he saying to Prodi? "this one is mine!"<br><!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://www.docstrangelove.com/images/bush_merkel_4.jpg" style="border:0;"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=anotherdrew>anotherdrew</A> at: 7/19/06 12:13 am<br></i>

[Et in Arcadia ego]

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The Bush/Blair item speaks the same.. Who here would talk to anyone like that? From behind?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Blair acts like a blathering supplicant through that entire encounter.. <p>____________________<br>Oderint, dum metuant</p><i></i>

[sunny]

<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/gate/archive/2006/07/19/notes071906.DTL&nl=fix">www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/ar...DTL&nl=fix</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>~snip~<br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Here he is, the leader of the Free World, fresh off being caught on a live microphone at the Group of Eight summit meeting muttering to his favorite poodle Tony Blair, using his bestest Texas-boy shtick, that if them gul-dang Syrians would just tell Hezbollah to knock this s-- off, everything would be dandy ... <br><br>Here is the president of the most powerful nation on the planet, fresh from an awkward smackdown by Vladimir Putin on Bush's failed war in Iraq, muttering to Blair and Chinese President Hu Jintao, actually more amazed and confounded by the fact that Jintao's flight home takes about as long as Bush's to Washington ... <br><br>(Bush: "You eight hours? Me too. Russia's a big country and you're a big country. Takes him eight hours to fly home ... Russia's big and so is China. Yo Blair, what're you doing? Are you leaving?" Ah, dumb-guy banter. Makes you feel proud all over, no?) <br><br>And now, the icing on the giant cake o' domestic torture. Here is Dubya, strolling speedily into a G-8 summit meeting where powerful, intent world leaders are already gathered to discuss, presumably, serious issues of the day, walking straight up to a seated German Chancellor Angela Merkel and giving her a weird, unsolicited shoulder rub from behind, before dashing to his seat. Oh yes he did. <br><br>The pictures, the video reveal all. Merkel reacts accordingly, is instantly creeped out, cringes and shrugs Bush away with a look of surprised revulsion. <br><br>Dubya is, of course, oblivious. His expression is his classic blank "Who, me?" stare that recalls a child caught eating a live grasshopper. He looks right past Merkel and quickly dashes away as though nothing had happened, as if the powerful German leader didn't just recoil visibly at his very touch. <br><br>It all happens in about four seconds. It is merely, on the surface, a minor infraction, a stupid gesture, a "what-the-hell?" moment you want to forget immediately but is unfortunately burned into your retina like a flaming spear of oh-please-God-no. And it speaks volumes.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <br><br>~snip~<br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Then again, this was a G-8 summit. Israel and Lebanon are burning. Iraq is in tatters. North Korea is spitting on the world. Global leaders are gathered to discuss the most pressing and violent issues on the planet, many of which the Bush administration had a clammy hand in exacerbating. Might not be the best time for the leader of the free world to give a cheesy frat-guy neck rub to his German gal-pal in front of the world media. You think? <br><br>See, now we get it. This is the bottom line, the final truth, George W. Bush in a nutshell. Bush thinks he is That Guy. The one everybody just loves to have around, the one who sincerely thinks his goofy charm is so appealing and so innocuous and so licky-puppy friendly that he can get away with all sorts of casual infractions and weird gestures no one else would care to attempt lest they appear, you know, dorky as a pinwheel hat. <br><br>And you know what? Bush really is That Guy. Just not in the way he wants to think. <br><br>In other words, he is indeed That Guy, like the best man at the wedding party, the one standing out in the center of the room, casually and cluelessly telling off-color jokes that offend everyone but which he thinks are gul-dang hilarious and, hell, if you're offended then you're just some gul-dang hippie liberal. Haw. <br><br>He is That Guy. The one who thinks he is everybody's bestest pal, the guy everyone wants to kick back with and have a few brewskies and chat about baseball and lawn fertilizer and Jesus. After all, isn't that what we all desire of the man who decides some of the most difficult, deadly, complicated issues on the planet? Isn't that slacked, frat-guy goofiness exactly what you want trying to broker peace in the Middle East and understand global warming and stem-cell research? Sure it is. <br><br><br>And when it comes to women (or rather, "wimmin"<!--EZCODE EMOTICON START ;) --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/wink.gif ALT=";)"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> , well, it's all taken one step further. Or, rather, downward. It's like an awkward scene from "The Office," where Steve Carell's character Michael Scott, the smarmy manager everyone secretly loathes but who himself believes to be the funniest and most likable and naturally gifted guy in the room, walks up to one of his female employees and grabs a mango and cracks a grossly inappropriate joke about vaginas and laughs hard, slaps everyone on the back, and then takes a big, gross bite of the mango. What a kidder! <br><br>He does not, of course, realize no one else is laughing.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i></i>

[anothershamus]

I tell you it's alien overlords. <p></p><i></i>

[stickdog99]

He was just trying to outdo Putin, but Putin still wins by a tongue. <p></p><i></i>

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

Gawd, Bush looks like he's the Manchurian Candidate.<br><br>What drug is he on? What is his earpiece telling him?<br><br>"Why don't you pass the time with a game of solitaire?"<br><br>“Angela Merkel is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.”<br><br><!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B00020X88Y.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg" style="border:0;"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--> <p></p><i></i>

[4911]

"He isn't fit to run a roadside melon stand let alone a country." <p></p><i></i>

[Mentalgongfu]

A treatment on this story from the Associated Press is now making the rounds. Typically, it's that 'dastardly Internet' which is making something out of nothing again. <br><br>"An embarassing political gaffe," the Merkel massage is called. And it definitely fits that description, but I first read the story in the same newspaper which regularly features updates on the lives of Brittney Spears and Paris Hilton on Page 2. <br><br>One quote from the article:<br><br>"Coupled with Bush’s use of an expletive at the summit and a U.S. senator comparing the Internet to a "series of tubes," the incident reveals anew the power of the Web - and YouTube, specifically - to beam embarrassing political gaffes around the world."<br><br>So the Newspapers of Record in this country are telling me the intimate and idiotic details of the lives of movie stars, musicians and other celebrities are worthy of Page 2 coverage, but the Presiden'ts "political gaffes" would not even be worthy of mention if it weren't for all the gossippy bloggers and readers surfing the Internet. <br><br>When I read articles like this, I always get the feeling the big daily newspapers are trying desperately to discredit the Internet and all the unmentionable subjects in a desperate effort to maintain control of what is acceptable thought and discourse. <br><br>This version, from the Boston Herald, has been edited since it ran in the morning edition of my local daily.<br><br>Bush’s back rub magnified in cyberspace<br>By Associated Press<br>Friday, July 21, 2006 - Updated: 05:56 AM EST<br><br>NEW YORK -- An impromptu back rub that President Bush gave German Chancellor Angela Merkel is now massaging millions of funny bones.<br> A 5-second video and series of photographs recently posted on YouTube.com and various blogs show Bush surprising Merkel at the G-8 Summit by quickly rubbing the back of her neck and shoulders. The chancellor immediately hunches her shoulders, throws her arms up and grimaces, though she appears to smile as Bush walks away.<br> The video has been one of the most popular clips on the Web and spawned countless remarks on the particulars of etiquette for world leaders. Coupled with Bush’s use of an expletive at the summit and a U.S. senator comparing the Internet to a "series of tubes," the incident reveals anew the power of the Web - and YouTube, specifically - to beam embarrassing political gaffes around the world.<br><br><br> Larry Sabato, professor of politics at the University of Virginia, agrees that today, public figures have to be more careful in "a thousand ways." But he maintains sites like YouTube can be revealing.<br> "If they’re not doing something that’s embarrassing, they have nothing to worry about," he says. "A president ought to know enough not use an expletive in a fairly open meeting and almost any male alive today knows that you don’t offer uninvited massages to any female, much less the chancellor of Germany."<br> Many writers saw a sexist aspect to Bush’s back rub. "This isn’t a Sigma Chi kegger, it’s the G-8 Summit," wrote blogger Christy Hardin Smith on Firedoglake.com.<br> (Bush was actually in Delta Kappa Epsilon. Another Web 2.0 truism: Blogs are not always friendly with the facts.)<br> Earlier this week, Bush was recorded using the s-word while discussing the Mideast with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. An mp3 of Bush’s line, posted by The New York Times, has been a popular download - ranking two spots ahead of Justin Timberlake’s "SexyBack" on The Hype Machine, a Web site that charts the most-linked audio tracks by blogs.<br> <p></p><i></i>

[anothershamus]

Like I said, Alien Overlords! <p></p><i></i>