<p>This thread has tantalized me for days but I deliberately stayed away. I guess my will power is low right now.</p>
<p>George W. Bush is from West Texas. I live in West Texas. West Texas men call each other by their last names, especially when they are close friends or long-time acquaintances. We all, men and women, tend to touch or pat each other on the hands, arms, elbows or shoulders when we meet someone we like or know well. (I guess we’re really the touchy-feely types, although I never thought of West Texans that way before.) We do not grope each other in overly personal ways nor do I consider President Bush’s actions with Chancellor Merkel to be groping. The only well-known grope-er I know is a former Governor of Arkansas. Perhaps it’s a regional thing.</p>
<p>As to eating with one’s mouth open, it’s not a common or accepted practice in West Texas but it does happen now and then. I didn’t see President Bush eat with his mouth open, but my time is limited and I could have missed it. If he did do that, please recall that George W. Bush was educated at Andover, Yale, and Harvard Business School. I’m sure he acquired a few habits while he attended those schools and perhaps this was one.</p>
<p>I’ve traveled in circles where men indulged their perceived need to spit on the sidewalk every few minutes, where a hearty belch at the end of a meal was considered high praise for the food, and where a man with an itchy back found relief by scraping it against the nearest wall. Those of us with a modicum of sense generally refrain from such displays of local color when traveling in circles where other customs prevail.</p>
<p>George W. isn’t displaying such behavior out of ignorance. He’s precisely aware of the semiotics behind his actions, I’ll wager. He was engaging in classic dominance displays at G-8.</p>
<p>Those comments sound very much like Bush’s typical method of speaking…his “common man” talk that people say appeals to them so much. Being crass, crude, eating with his mouth open…why would anyone think this is a fake-out and not just our dear president acting as he always does?</p>
<p>How could someone with some manners like GHWB turn out a son as cloddish as GWB? We’re talking like this is some guy who was raised as a wildcatter and is just “plain folks”, but this is really a guy who has run in the circle of upper society.</p>
<p>I agree with Greybeard: His behavior was definitely calculated. We’ve all seen video of him at other events (the press dinner, meeting with the Queen of England, etc.) where he exhibited perfect manners with ease in a style that is “to the manor born.” His behavior here was so different I suspect he knew very well the mike was on.</p>
<p>The reason I think the G8 was instructive is that for years, we have been told to overlook Bush’s formal speaking skills because of his extraordinary in-person charm. We’ve heard that no matter how he may sound on television, he’s at his best at handshake distance, and he can win people over with his terrific one-on-one communication skills.</p>
<p>This week suggests that either the conventional wisdom was wrong, or that Bush was deliberately using rudeness to alienate foreign leaders for reasons known only to the White House.</p>
<p>I don’t claim to be an expert on Texas manners, but speaking from flyover country, this is not just a matter of Teutonic frostiness. I’ve spent time at negotiating tables in my down-to-earth Midwestern hometown, and an uninvited neck rub on a female managing partner would reduce the proceedings to shocked silence. Perhaps that was the goal?</p>
<p>As posters elsewhere have suggested, I would have paid good money to see someone try this on Margaret Thatcher.</p>
<p>How much was DONE at this conference…what did they accomplish, what was decided, who suggested what…did GWB have anythig to add? </p>
<p>There were protesters, we had a new battle in the middle east, we have global warmng on the table, AIDS, farm subsidies, farm tarrifs, energy conservation…</p>
<p>So what was really done…</p>
<p>“Hey Georgie, go give whatherface a litlte texas friendliness, cause we don’t want the press to catch on about the farmers subsidies, or that we are being pain i the behinds to the world regarding trade…that’s a good boy”</p>
<p>“Hayden, it’s not about Bill, it’s about Hillary. Her husband dishonored her in a very sleazy way, and for all the world to see. And she chose to stay married to him. That sort of makes it impossible to respect her, therefore it’s difficult to imagine considering electing her to any office.”</p>
<p>Giuliani’s relationship on the other hand appeared mature, substantive.</p>
<p>Yup. Instead of a little “icing” on the side, they did the full-blown adultery thing for a year, while his wife and child occupied the Mansion. Very “mature”, very “substantive”. </p>
<p>Everyone knows that extramarital sex (or abortions, welfare,e tc) is only important when one is talking about Democrats. Such criticism doesn’t touch those teflon Republicans.</p>
<p>Mini, Giuliani’s ex-wife isn’t planning to run for office anytime soon, far as I know. Therefore, it’s irrelevant that she continued to occupy the mansion long after the marriage was clearly over.</p>
<p>The issue ain’t the wife (in either case, not guilty of anything), but the husband(s). But as far as I know, one husband isn’t considering running for President (again). </p>
<p>I hope they reprint the covers of the NY Daily News and NY Post. ;)</p>
<p>Allmusic, it’s not about the adultery, it’s the issue of a woman (or man for that matter) who desperately, clingingly remains in a relationship when s/he has clearly been dishonored, disrespected, and when the other party has clearly demonstrated through word and/or deed that they prefer someone else’s company, etc. It’s especially horrific when the entire world knows about it.</p>
<p>If a person has such little self value and self respect, how can anyone else possibly value and respect them?</p>
<p>It is precisely about adultery. I doubt the Bible thumpers go 'round blaming the victim twice, especially when they have a dyed-in-the-wool real-life, honest-to-God, unrepentant adulter and sleazeball right in front of them. He could have had at least the decency to do it in a hotel? (for all we know, he had a different woman stashed there. ;))</p>
<p>Hillary isn’t an acceptable candidate because she got into solo politics too late–and she created a poor ‘riding on the coattails’ impression during the early years of the Clinton administration, an impression which has continued into her senate and pre-presidential career. At this point in history, the Democrats need a galvanizing candidate to restore strength to the two party system.</p>
<p>As a fellow professional moderate liberal woman, she should have my vote but she doesn’t–for the reasons above. I’ve always thought that the Republicans would give themselves a big “Atta boy!” if they managed to get her on top of the Democratic ticket.</p>
<p>Both marital breakdowns were sleazy. Guiliani had young children at the time. However, I wouldn’t fault either wife for defending her territory. Both men are magnetic, brilliant and flawed human beings with central roles in our ongoing history–quite irreplaceable if one looks at it from a purely intellectual point of view. After decades of marriage, quite often the intellectual, the shared history and the companionship are the compelling aspects of the union (though we boomers like to imagine our whoopee could be as good as it was when we were 20. )</p>
<p>Hillary and Bill’s decision to stay in the marriage with their only adored child wasn’t ‘horrific’. It was rational, practical and European. Not everyone aspires to live in a fairy tale.</p>
<p>Could you please point out the portion of my post that revealed any prejudices against Texas? I described my own home state as “flyover country,” if you’ll recall. I would have asserted that any Texas lawyer would know better than to take such a familiarity with a middle-aged woman across the negotiating table, but since I haven’t actually practiced in Texas, I limited my statement to the portion of the heartland where I’ve directly observed multiparty negotiations (Illinois & Wisconsin). This is prejudiced?</p>
<p>Anyone who blames a breach of etiquette on a Texas upbringing hasn’t watched Kay Bailey Hutchison in action.</p>
)</p>