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This is probably the stupidest story you will read this week. A 93-year-old wheelchair-bound George Herbert Walker Bush is accused of groping women. Specifically, patting them on the butt. Actions for which he apologized (there are other mitigating factors like age and infirmity that are kind of important). Did I mention he is 93 years old? In a wheelchair? I did not mention he has Parkinsons disease, did I? NPR talks about the events and response. The selective outrage has me rather outraged. See, if he was Bill Clinton, the response would be giggles. Because he is GHW Bush, outrage meter is on full.
Former President George H.W. Bush has acknowledged touching multiple women inappropriately in what his spokesman called “patt[ing] women’s rears in what he intended to be a good-natured manner.”
Two women have reportedly accused the former president of groping them while posing for photographs with Bush in recent year
My grandpa would fly to California about once a year. He came with Grandma, sat behind first class and flirted like a fool (Grandma told me he did and poked fun at the old man). He got them first class meals, he got playing cards and any giveaways the airline had because he flirted (old little bald guy). Grandpa used his “I am an old man” comment to get through the line at the bank and the store (he would cut in line and he was a cute old guy and got away with it). He also sat on the boardwalk (they lived a block from the beach) with his buddies and the old men commented on the girls walking by.
Actress Heather Lind actually went full stupid:
“[W]hen I got the chance to meet George H. W. Bush four years ago to promote a historical television show I was working on, he sexually assaulted me while I was posing for a similar photo,” Lind wrote in a post Tuesday, according to CNN. “He didn’t shake my hand. He touched me from behind from his wheelchair with his wife Barbara Bush by his side. He told me a dirty joke. And then, all the while being photographed, touched me again.”
No, cupcake, that is not sexual assault. That is an old man making a joke. Sexual assault is quite a bit different, and thank you, Ms. Lind, for totally minimizing sexual assault. And note if you will what is considered ok in Ms. Lind’s world this article from VG about Ellen De Generes. I have no words for that which I can write here. Sexual assault is not having someone staring are your boobs or an old guy pinching your butt. But, hey, it is your career, right, princess?
The response from his spokesman is heart breaking. Parkinsons disease is described here by the Mayo Clinic. A recent video kind of makes the actresses look like bullies. And, ladies, you are. Picking on an old man.
“At age 93, President Bush has been confined to a wheelchair for roughly five years, so his arm falls on the lower waist of people with whom he takes pictures. To try to put people at ease, the president routinely tells the same joke — and on occasion, he has patted women’s rears in what he intended to be a good-natured manner. Some have seen it as innocent; others clearly view it as inappropriate. To anyone he has offended, President Bush apologizes most sincerely.”
Twitter had a few useful comments as well:
You ever had an old person with Parkinson’s in your family? They ain’t groping. They’re dying #GHWBush
— Sqwilliam Fancyson (@William_Ryann) October 26, 2017
Loss of motor control has that effect and his making a joke again is NOT SEXUAL ASSAULT.
#BenAffleck manhandles and kisses reporter…giggles.#GHWBush touches #HeatherLind on ass…sexual assault!#LiberalPrivilege
— Walter Pereira (@walt1999walt) October 25, 2017
Funny/not funny. And this puts the whole outraged clamor into perspective:
Pepè Le Pew added to list of long-time sexual harassers apologizing to women everywhere. “But you are so beautiful,” Pepè says. #Interview pic.twitter.com/1P9hDuDknc
— Mord McGhee (@Mordhyrgm) October 26, 2017
Sexual assault is important, it is important to speak up, but let’s be realistic. A pat on the butt from an old guy is not assault. And unlike Ben Affleck, Harvey Weinstein and all the charming Hollywood Pervs using the casting couch for real assault, GHWB apologized to these two selectively outraged snowflakes. Perhaps they need to respond with an apology as well. But that would mean having common sense and manners.
David Lentz says: As to sexual assault, I don’t like the term. It is too vague and too all inclusive. Call a pat on the rear inappropriate but don’t lump it with rape. The former is a social faux paw. The latter is a felony.
As for the so-called dirty joke. Give me a break. I know what a dirty joke is, and a punch line of “David Cop-a-Feel” does not qualify. Then it is a joke. I laughed at it.
Jennifer says: Amen David-she insults the survivors of actual sexual assault. I detest women who belittle the experiences of other women in furtherance of their career.
Stephen Ippolito says: Excellent posting, Victory Girls, chiefly because you apply a quality that used to be taken for granted but, alas, is now almost unknown today: perspective.
The man is wheelchair bound, frail and was flying fighter jets in the Pacific a full 4 decades before this wretched, grand-standing whiner, (I mean, strong empowered woman: hear her roar), was even born. Cut him a break and be a grown-up, young woman.
What did she think he was going to do to her?
Boorish? Perhaps. But was being goosed and told an off-color joke really so traumatic she had to be “supported” through the incident by workmates? A weakling.
Barbara Bush’s bemused eye-rolling strikes me in the circumstances as the correct and more adult response.
PS. Way to go #41. There’s life in the old boy yet!
Lynn says: OK, the David Cop-a-Feel joke is not of the character that I’d like to see in my ex-presidents. Barbara should have slapped him for it a long time ago.
But that video put tears in my eyes. Tears of anger at these allegations, and of compassion. My Dad has Parkinson’s, and it can be so hard to keep him from despairing about his future. To see GHWB with a smile on his face and then see him use his hands with such difficulty just fills my heart with every emotion in the book.
Steve S says: They (two guys, one gal) were joking about this on the morning commute radio show this morning, kidding around about it. They were making statements such as “he’s from a different era” and “he’s 93 years old” and more or less came to the conclusion that really old men and really young kids get a pass on this kind of thing.
This was a bit weird for me: GHWB has a couple decades on me, but in no wise was I ever given leave to think that touching another person without their invitation was acceptable, however ruefully. I was rather astonished at that radio exchange.
No, this does not rise to the level of assault, but neither is it appropriate. It’s one thing if his touching is an inadvertent flex from Parkinson’s. If any of it is playfully deliberate, it really should stop. This has nothing to do with hyper-sensitivity of today, and everything to do with personal respect.
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