The President Embarrasses America, Yet Again.

Just suppose that you are a man working for a company, and you are at an important business meeting, where you are discussing matters of grave importance with your peers at other corporations. You walk up behind a female who is your equivalent elsewhere, whom you've only met briefly before and had some phone conversations with, and suddenly you grab the back of her neck and her shoulders and give her an uninvited back rub. Of course if you are a half way intelligent male (I like to think I am) you know better than to even think about something like that in today's society. And if you did it, you would probably be fired from your job (and would deserve it).

Whether she chose to call it sexual harrassment or not, it is clearly over the line. Yet that is exactly what President Bush did at the G-8 summit to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

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.

What else could she do? Her immediate reaction shows what she thought about it.

Of course, if Bill Clinton did this (and he never had the gall to initiate inappropriate physical contact with a foreign leader in front of the world) it would be an impeachable offense. But the people who think Bush can do no wrong will probably laugh it off. And no, this isn't an impeachable offense but it definitely rises to the level of a national embarrassment. As am American, I would like to express my apologies to Chancellor Merkel and to the German people for having this kind of dope supposedly representing me on the International stage.

By the way: Look at the leer on the guy in the background. Is he a secret service member? He's obviously 'in' on it.

Cross-posted at Deep Thought.