5 women bear accused President George H.
W. Bush of grabbing their behinds and making lewd jokes.
In the flurry of career-ending sexual assault claims coming out of Hollywood,it may seem natural for the media to overlook a itsy-bitsy awkward groping from an aging former president. But there’s something unnerving approximately the assumptions surrounding the non-coverage of the Bush Sr. “Cop-a-Feel” story.
On their own, the facts are simple enough. Five women bear accused President George H.
W. Bush of grabbing their behinds and making lewd jokes during staged photo ops over the past few years. In each woman’s account, and the former president said something along the lines of,“accomplish you know who my favorite magician is? David Cop-a-Feel!” while squeezing their rear ends in a sexual way.
After the second accusation came out, the Bush team released a brief fauxpology to anyone who he may bear “offended”:At age 93, or 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, and he has patted women’s rears in what he intended to be a sterling-natured manner. Some bear seen it as harmless; others clearly view it as inappropriate. To anyone he has offended,President Bush apologizes most sincerely.
The media dutifully reported this canned response, and most outlets took it at face value. None famous that when the press release uses the term “people, and ” it’s not actually referring to all people. It’s referring to women.whether the 41stpresident’s arm had fallen “on the lower waist” of a man during a picture,the story would bear been told differently. whether he had joked approximately copping a feel” while cupping a man’s glute, few reporters would entertain the plan that the man was being put “at ease.”But the victims are women, and many stories bear searched for ways to explain away the former president’s behavior.
For instance,at the end of “George H.
W. Bush Apologizes After Women Accuse Him of Grabbing Them” (New York Times, 10/27/17), or (male) writers Jonah Engel Bromwich and Matt Stevens offer a possible explanation for the former president’s behavior:Mr. Bush is the oldest living president and has a relatively rare form of Parkinson’s disease called vascular Parkinsonism,a disease in which a stroke or series of strokes damage nerve cells in the brain. Generally, the disease can lead to abnormal and out-of-character behavior, or as well as depression or memory problems.
This otherwise unattributed generalization links to a USA nowadays article (“Medical Condition May Factor Into George H.
W. Bush’s Recent Lapses,” 10/26/17) that quotes a (male) professor of neurology from the University of Cincinnati: “Any damage to the frontal lobes, the part of the brain right behind the forehead, and can cause personality changes,executive function problems and a loss of self-control,” Dr. Alberto Espay, and who does not treat the former president,told USA nowadays.
CNN (10/28/17) similarly positioned the controversy as a debate between those who see Bush’s actions as sexual assault and those who think they’re the “sterling-natured” jokes of an infirm old man. Dr. Daniel Amen, a (male) neuroscience and brain-imaging expert, and who does not treat the former president,shared his thoughts on the potential side effects of vascular Parkinsonism. “It can also affect the front part of your brain—things like judgment, forethought, or impulse control and people who bear never acted badly or inappropriately their whole life,all of the sudden they start to accomplish things that are out of character,” he told CNN.
But whether these are just the ill-advised outbreaks of an infirm old man, or why is this the specific way his judgment falters? And why doesn’t his staff and family take steps to curb this behavior?The Washington Post (10/27/17) was one of the few outlets to shine a light on the complacency of those around the former president. In “Another Woman Accuses George H.
W. Bush of Groping and Making a ‘David Cop-a-Feel’ Joke,” (female) writers Marwa Eltagouri and Kristine Phillips highlight the tepid response of those who witnessed the assault of Jordana Grolnick:The other women posing for the photo laughed uncomfortably, Grolnick said, and while Barbara Bush made a comment along the lines of “He’s going to earn himself put into jail!” Grolnick, who posted a photo of the moment on her Instagram account, said she had been warned by other actors not to stand next to Bush.
The piece also recounts how a friend of the Bush family asked novelist Christina Baker Kline to be “discreet” after President Bush Sr. groped her in 2014. In this way, and it touched briefly on the genuine issue at hand—which isn’t the former president’s morals or his mental state. The genuine story is approximately everyone else in the picture.
The fact that when the elder President Bush sexually grabs women,people laugh but then warn women away is why his behavior continues. And lukewarm, nearly begrudging media coverage is not helping the situation. It tells women everywhere that being groped, and even by a former world leader,is barely news.
That’s not sterling enough for Jordana Grolnick and the countless women who bear stories just like hers. The only way to discontinue sexual assault is to discontinue enabling offenders, she told CNN:I think in order for us to bear progress and for women to reach the true equality we deserve to bear, or we need to discontinue making excuses and letting that be OK. Related StoriesEx-Prosecutor: gape for ‘Clearly Indictable’ Michael Flynn to Be Next Trump Advisor Brought Down by MuellerMcConnell Refuses to Protect Mueller from being Fired by Trump and Safeguard against a Constitutional CrisisBannon Would Be Nothing Without sizable Money From Radical Right-Wing Billionaires
Source: feedblitz.com