Actress accuses HW Bush of sexual assaulting her

[publicunofficial]

There's another accuser:

https://deadspin.com/second-woman-george-h-w-bush-groped-me-1819855977

This makes Bush sound like a relic from the 1950's then an actually sexually assaulter.

He might think it is 1950.

[JA]

There's another accuser:

https://deadspin.com/second-woman-george-h-w-bush-groped-me-1819855977

This makes Bush sound like a relic from the 1950's then an actually sexually assaulter.

Sexual assault is sexual assault regardless of where or when it happens. Stop trying to excuse or downplay the severity of sexual assault; the "relic from the 1950s" is a sexual assaulter no better than any person who performs a similar action today. Sexual coercion, exploitation, and violence is pervasive in our society and can be performed by anyone to anyone, with any person from a relative to a friend to your boss to the President being capable of having a history of performing unwanted sexual advances against victims. And under no circumstances, whether "it was the 1950s" or "we were drunk" or "she was dressed like a whore" could ever possibly excuse it. Period.

[publicunofficial]

Honestly the best PR move for Poppy Bush here is to kick the bucket already.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Can this country just have ONE NICE THING?!?!

[Doimper]

Can this country just have ONE NICE THING?!?!

If George "Check out this black guy that's about to jump over your picket fence and rape your wife" Bush Senior was the nicest thing we had, then this country is even worse off than I thought

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Andrea Mitchel ‏Verified account @mitchellreports  13h13 hours ago
 
Mrs Bush was at his side. He is in a wheelchair with Parkinson's syndrome. Really? Someone should be ashamed and it isn't '41.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

The people who crave victimhood are the worst thing for actual victims of legitimate issues.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Andrea Mitchel ‏Verified account @mitchellreports  13h13 hours ago
 
Mrs Bush was at his side. He is in a wheelchair with Parkinson's syndrome. Really? Someone should be ashamed and it isn't '41.

I don't understand. Who should be ashamed? Also why does being in a wheelchair exonerate him?

[Reaganfan Democrat]

Andrea Mitchel ‏Verified account @mitchellreports  13h13 hours ago
 
Mrs Bush was at his side. He is in a wheelchair with Parkinson's syndrome. Really? Someone should be ashamed and it isn't '41.

I don't understand. Who should be ashamed? Also why does being in a wheelchair exonerate him?

She said he's in a wheelchair with Parkinson's, which damages cognitive and motor function... and that the media/public should be ashamed for automatically jumping to the worst possible conclusion.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Andrea Mitchel ‏Verified account @mitchellreports  13h13 hours ago
 
Mrs Bush was at his side. He is in a wheelchair with Parkinson's syndrome. Really? Someone should be ashamed and it isn't '41.

I don't understand. Who should be ashamed? Also why does being in a wheelchair exonerate him?

She said he's in a wheelchair with Parkinson's, which damages cognitive and motor function... and that the media/public should be ashamed for automatically jumping to the worst possible conclusion.

When Andrea Mitchell sticks up for you...........well......

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Andrea Mitchel ‏Verified account @mitchellreports  13h13 hours ago
 
Mrs Bush was at his side. He is in a wheelchair with Parkinson's syndrome. Really? Someone should be ashamed and it isn't '41.

I don't understand. Who should be ashamed? Also why does being in a wheelchair exonerate him?

She said he's in a wheelchair with Parkinson's, which damages cognitive and motor function... and that the media/public should be ashamed for automatically jumping to the worst possible conclusion.

Sorry, still makes no sense to me. What conclusion are people jumping to? Two people have come out with similar accounts of being assaulted by him. You can find the picture of him with one of the accusers with his hand on her butt. Are the accusers lying?

Imagine you are in the position of somebody who gets groped, and has somebody make a joke about groping you while you are surrounded by other people. That would make you feel incredibly uncomfortable. Also imagine feeling like you can't speak out or call out the fact that this happened because the man is one of the most powerful people on Earth. Are you supposed to smile and say "shucks, George has Parkinsons!" and ignore your discomfort?

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Andrea Mitchel ‏Verified account @mitchellreports  13h13 hours ago
 
Mrs Bush was at his side. He is in a wheelchair with Parkinson's syndrome. Really? Someone should be ashamed and it isn't '41.

I don't understand. Who should be ashamed? Also why does being in a wheelchair exonerate him?

She said he's in a wheelchair with Parkinson's, which damages cognitive and motor function... and that the media/public should be ashamed for automatically jumping to the worst possible conclusion.

Sorry, still makes no sense to me. What conclusion are people jumping to? Two people have come out with similar accounts of being assaulted by him. You can find the picture of him with one of the accusers with his hand on her butt. Are the accusers lying?

Imagine you are in the position of somebody who gets groped, and has somebody make a joke about groping you while you are surrounded by other people. That would make you feel incredibly uncomfortable. Also imagine feeling like you can't speak out or call out the fact that this happened because the man is one of the most powerful people on Earth. Are you supposed to smile and say "shucks, George has Parkinsons!" and ignore your discomfort?

No but I wouldn't necessarily call it an assault.  Having a now deceased family member with Parkinsons and the dementia that accompanied it, I know that assault isn't even something that could be forumulated in their mind.  It's no excuse for bad behavior, but sexual assault probably isn't what it was.

[Reaganfan Democrat]

Imagine you are in the position of somebody who gets groped, and has somebody make a joke about groping you while you are surrounded by other people. That would make you feel incredibly uncomfortable. Also imagine feeling like you can't speak out or call out the fact that this happened because the man is one of the most powerful people on Earth. Are you supposed to smile and say "shucks, George has Parkinsons!" and ignore your discomfort?

No, it was wrong, and his family released a statement apologizing for the incident. However, he is an old, sick man who has limited mobility and is slowly losing control of his body and mind, so it is reasonable to give him some benefit of the doubt here.

[Koharu]

Well, on one hand, I'm thankful that President Bush admitted to his behavior, but on the other, I'm absolutely disgusted that he and others are trying to play it off as being "good-natured." Touching someone's behind without their okay is not appropriate ever. Making sexual jokes is not okay. Yes, he's old, but that doesn't excuse this behavior, as I said before. People overlooked this kind of behavior in the past, but that didn't make it okay. It's excellent that we're starting to tackle it now, and part of that is not letting him off the hook just because he was trying to be "good-natured" or because of his age.

In addition, the apology is a load of ridiculousness. Instead of apologizing for his behavior in all, because anything like that is inappropriate, he only apologizes to those he offended, which basically says he doesn't think what he did was bad. Apologize for the behavior, say you realize now that it was inappropriate, and you won't do it again. Otherwise, your apology is pointless.

And another edit: If it is his dementia that is "causing" this, ie, it wasn't something he did prior to the Parkinson's, then it would probably be wise to not take President Bush to events where this kind of thing can happen. The harassment is still harmful to those affected, regardless of whether the person who did it is cognitively aware of what they are doing.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

And another edit: If it is his dementia that is "causing" this, ie, it wasn't something he did prior to the Parkinson's, then it would probably be wise to not take President Bush to events where this kind of thing can happen. The harassment is still harmful to those affected, regardless of whether the person who did it is cognitively aware of what they are doing.

Agreed and I don't think his family will ever put him in a position where this could even accidentally happen again.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

And another edit: If it is his dementia that is "causing" this, ie, it wasn't something he did prior to the Parkinson's, then it would probably be wise to not take President Bush to events where this kind of thing can happen. The harassment is still harmful to those affected, regardless of whether the person who did it is cognitively aware of what they are doing.

Agreed and I don't think his family will ever put him in a position where this could even accidentally happen again.

I hope so too, but at the same time, we've had two incidents so far. I would have hoped hoped after the first incident that his family would have stopped this from happening, yet here we are. Maybe after the public discussion about this case they will take it more seriously and actually stop putting him in this position, but we will see.

I'm not trying to call out or shame people in this thread, but this discussion worries me a little bit because women who are assaulted constantly have the seriousness of what happened to them downplayed or excused away. Harvey Weinstein was an example of this ("that's just the way this industry works") and I dealt with it a few times at my old job where we had older male volunteers interacting with younger female staff ("they're just products of a different era"). This incident seems to be veering in that direction too. Sexual assault has a lot of gray areas (I would say this is one of them), but it seems like society has defined those gray areas so that a lot of those cases end up benefitting men (there was a good article on this recently but I forget where I found it). I would really hate it if what happened to these two women went the same way, where people made them feel like being assaulted was somehow permissible or expected because of his age and illness.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Fun fact: HW's Skull and Bones nickname was "Magog", traditionally reserved for "most sexually experienced" members (William Howard Taft also enjoyed this distinction).

[JA]

Andrea Mitchel ‏Verified account @mitchellreports  13h13 hours ago
 
Mrs Bush was at his side. He is in a wheelchair with Parkinson's syndrome. Really? Someone should be ashamed and it isn't '41.

Gee, I wonder why so few victims ever come forward... Then when a victim does come forward years later and/or after someone else already has, everyone starts questioning and doubting them, “why didn’t you come forward before?” Probably because people, throughout history into our present day, are so inclined to shame the victim and not believe them while protecting the accused. Nobody wants to accept that sexual assaulters and rapists could be respected public figures, your son, your friend, etc... It shows what an unpredictable world we live in and that being a victim isn’t something that can necessarily be prevented. These are uncomfortable facts, but in cases of sexual assault accusations, where only 2-8% are proven false (at the same level as other accusations of violent crimes), while the law should still protect “innocent until proven guilty” the public should believe the victim until proven innocent.

[The Other Castro]

/s

https://twitter.com/pixelatedboat/status/923355713962774528

[Reaganfan Democrat]

One of the leaders of the War on Drugs joking about a drug arrest.

[J. J.]

Why don't we just say, "All men are pigs," and get it over with. 

[Kamala]

Why don't we just say, "All men are pigs," and get it over with. 

I mean, all men are pigs, but that doesn’t solve anything.

[Yank2133]

There's another accuser:

https://deadspin.com/second-woman-george-h-w-bush-groped-me-1819855977

This makes Bush sound like a relic from the 1950's then an actually sexually assaulter.

Sexual assault is sexual assault regardless of where or when it happens. Stop trying to excuse or downplay the severity of sexual assault; the "relic from the 1950s" is a sexual assaulter no better than any person who performs a similar action today. Sexual coercion, exploitation, and violence is pervasive in our society and can be performed by anyone to anyone, with any person from a relative to a friend to your boss to the President being capable of having a history of performing unwanted sexual advances against victims. And under no circumstances, whether "it was the 1950s" or "we were drunk" or "she was dressed like a whore" could ever possibly excuse it. Period.

Bush acted crude, but what he did seems more like actions from a man who is deeply out of touch with today's norms. I mean Barbara was right there and laughed it off. It was terrible joke and he should apologize.

But we should be careful about labeling this as sexually assault. There has been no reports of Bush doing this when he is younger and as we know predators tend to have a long history of doing stuff like this.

[Sirius_]

Why don't we just say, "All men are pigs," and get it over with. 

I mean, all men are pigs, but that doesn’t solve anything.

Well now this thread should be burned because we either have trolls or people who actually believe that.

[Kamala]

Why don't we just say, "All men are pigs," and get it over with. 

I mean, all men are pigs, but that doesn’t solve anything.

Well now this thread should be burned because we either have trolls or people who actually believe that.

You're right. Most gay men are alright.