Merkel to Bush: Cut That S#!% Out

Crooks and Liars » Presidential Groping

"You know we grope differently on set than we do in real life. Our onset groping is really much more disgusting than our real-life groping." Kelly Ripa

Everybody and his brother has weighed in on the S-Word heard round the world. But many seemed to have missed the international implications of the G-8 Grope.

Here's the video of President Bush giving what appears to be a frat-boy two-fisted double-shoulder grab to German Chancellor Angela Merkel as he passes her chair.

Her response couldn't be clearer: GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME! Or, more likely, "Schneiden Sie diese Scheiße aus!" [see above title for translation]

You don't have to understand a word of German to take a look at these sequence photos of Bush's approach, take-off and landing, along with Merkel's series of surprised and outraged responses. Keep an eye on Dubya's face ... he couldn't be more disconnected from his own actions.

I swear, it's like Animal House meets Deliverance. This guy can't control his most basic impulses and apparently doesn't even know when they're way off base.

Ask him what the hell he was thinking in grabbing the female Chancellor of Germany from behind, without warning and in far too familiar a way. He'd probably tell you he was 'just tryin' to make that little German gal feel welcome among all the big fellas.'

The man is an idiot. And if they didn't know it before, the world leaders at the G-8 this week are sure finding out now. Makes you so proud to be an American, doesn't it?

As for the s-word fiasco, I don't give a fig about the swearing. (Although I love the fact that so many Bush acolytes swear he doesn't swear.) It's the forswearing of adult behavior that's so troubling. Bush rocks, chews, talks with his mouth full, scans the room in seeming boredom and appears--again--disconnected from the discussion.

The President of the United States talking privately to the Prime Minister of Great Britain as we listen in. Should have been a unique opportunity to hear our leaders in action, unscripted, behind the scenes where the real work gets done.

Instead, what did we see? George Bush is rude, unengaged, doesn't grasp the gravity of the Middle East situation. Bonus: we got to see Tony Blair, the US's only powerful international ally, become as bewildered as the rest of us at Dubya's ineptitude and inattention.

The S-Word pales beside the president's unconscionable lack of knowledge on the Middle East crisis -- or for that matter, on the Middle East itself.

And the G-8 Grope? Imagine how the fanatically religious Muslim leaders in Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran reacted as America's president put his hands on a woman not his wife, a world leader herself and in public.

If they had little respect for him before, that act alone allows them to dismiss him entirely as the lightweight he is.

Mr. President, please, keep your mouth shut and your hands in your pockets before you get us all killed.