Ho hum, another day, and another woman comes out of the woodwork claiming that former President George H.W. Bush groped her.

This time it’s author Christina Baker Kline, writing in Slate about her 2014 experience. And not only does Kline have her story, she has proof! As in a picture of GHWB with his hand on her butt!

Someone pass the smelling salts!

She describes Bush’s M.O. as his other accusers have:

“You wanna know my favorite book?” he whispered. I had to lean close to hear him.

“Yes, what is it?”

By now the photographer was readying the shot. My husband stood on one side of the wheelchair, and I stood on the other. President Bush put his arm around me, low on my back. His comic timing was impeccable. “David Cop-a-feel,” he said, and squeezed my butt, hard, just as the photographer snapped the photo. Instinctively, I swiped his hand away.

She continues by telling us why she didn’t say anything earlier — because it involved a former president, and she didn’t want the scrutiny. But her third reason is a real eye-roller:

I also didn’t want to seem opportunistic, as if I was reporting the former president’s transgression for publicity purposes. (Although, ugh, who wants this kind of publicity?) . . . Most of all, I didn’t want to be perceived as being cruel to a harmless, aging former president with a reputation for courtly gentility.

She doesn’t want “this kind of publicity?” Well, you got it now, honey! You’re just as opportunistic as the other women who are clamoring for their 15 minutes of fame.

What these women don’t realize — or choose to ignore — is that it’s likely that former President Bush is affected by dementia. So perhaps they should “educate themselves,” as liberals are so fond of telling conservatives.

Now, I’m not a doctor, I’m just a lowly speech pathologist, and the vast majority of my clients and patients have been children. But I have studied neurology, head injury, stroke, and dementia in graduate school and beyond. And while I have no direct knowledge of GHWB’s cognitive abilities, I’d be willing to bet he has some impairment.

It’s been reported that GHWB has Parkinson’s disease. Well, yeah, he has a form of the syndrome, called Vascular Parkinsonism. Yes, there are multiple kinds of Parkinson’s. My own mother-in-law passed away in 2001 from the rare Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, yet another form. I had never heard of PSP until her diagnosis, and even she was initially misdiagnosed by a neurologist.

But there’s ample evidence of dementia being a feature of these syndromes, including Vascular Parkinsonism. In fact, a 2012 review of Brazilian studies and other literature shows that patients with VP demonstrate cognitive impairment. From the abstract:

Patients with VP tend to be older and present with gait difficulties . . .postural instability, falls, cognitive impairment and dementia. . . (Boldface mine.)

It concludes with this:

Cognitive decline can occur in VP at presentation or develop early in the disease course. . . . manifesting as dysexecutive syndrome with impairment of attention, planning, judgment, goal directed behavior, abstract thinking, verbal fluency, in association with behavioral problems. . . .

Now we know that George H.W. Bush is a very elderly man in poor condition. It’s also very likely that he has some cognitive impairment. So why are these women acting like Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Bodysnatchers?

What do they hope to accomplish? Are they out to “educate” the elder Bush into the ways of being “woke”? Yeah, good luck with that. Or are they eager to shame the conservative, genteel Bush family, and gain some notoriety at the same time? In other words, a twofer! I’m pretty sure it’s the latter. In that case, the shame should fall on their shoulders, not on those of an sick elderly man and his family.