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President Bush gets spiked by volleyball team, media

By Brian | August 13, 2008 | Share on Facebook

Jason Bennion directed my attention to these two

Topics: News and/or Media, Sports Talk | 6 Comments »

6 Responses to “President Bush gets spiked by volleyball team, media”

  1. Jeff Porten says at August 14th, 2008 at 10:58 am :
    You have to put the request in context; Kerry and Misty had just watched Bush give a backrub to the German woman’s volleyball team….

    Look, we’re agreed that “slap me on the tuchus” is not the way I’d act given an audience with the president. But I seem to be the only one of the two of us who remembers that the September 10th image of W was that he was the reformed frat boy, the guy most of his voters wanted to have a beer with. (I swear to God, I opened that picture three times, because the first two times I registered the bottle of water as a Coors tall boy, before I remembered he’s a recovering alcoholic.)

    If I had to guess which Bush is the real guy, and which is the carefully crafted media image, I’m going with the frat boy. And the man’s on vacation, hanging out at the biggest quadrennial sporting event going. So I wonder what the interaction was before the request was made.

    If it’s any consolation, I don’t see this working out any differently if it were the 2000 Olympics and that other guy, excepting that the slap on the ass would have been heartier.

  2. Brian says at August 14th, 2008 at 11:54 am :
    So what you’re saying here, is that you opened the picture three times, but you were only looking at the President. Let me guess – you’re the guy who’s reading the articles at playboy.com too, right? ;-)

    I guess my point is that even if Bush is a reformed frat boy, Kerry and Misty should still have the maturity/brains to treat him (or least to treat the office) with a little more respect. Once they don’t do that, quite frankly, Bush is in a no-win situation.

    And yes, his predecessor would have received just as much attention, if not more. Except in 2000, when Kerry Walsh lost her wedding ring in the sand, Clinton would likely have been a suspect.

  3. Jeff Porten says at August 17th, 2008 at 3:23 pm :
    What I said was that I had to look at the picture three times before I could accurately determine what the president was drinking. So you can draw your own conclusion about what parts of the picture drew my attention.

    Hey, we’re agreed that the office of the president deserves some respect. My semi-serious point is that we shouldn’t miss the fact that there are some presidents who degrade the office. For example: prior to the Nixon administration, proper usage would require the word “president” to be capitalized in all instances I’ve used in this paragraph. After 1974, there was a marked (and apparently unconscious) movement in American English to use the capitalized President only when used as a title for past or current officeholders. Today it’s largely mixed-use elsewhere, and both are considered correct.

    I don’t think that anyone has ever noticed this, but my choice of president over President was a conscious one on December 12, 2000, and it remains to be seen whether I will switch back in 2009. I would prefer to, and that decision will be independent of the winner — rather, it will depend upon the cleanliness of the election.

    All of which is introduction to the point that, while the request for an ass-slapping made headlines, I haven’t seen any reports of the interaction between Bush and the volleyball team prior to the request. I can easily picture that this president, who has made a marketing image of his beer-swilling, guy-I’d-watch-a-game-with demeanor (which is both untrue according to published reports, as well as bizarre for a recovering alcoholic), said or did something that would set them at ease.

    Beyond which, given Bush’s chosen public image (as opposed to Clinton’s, which was not part of his marketing campaign), I definitely find it less offensive when a woman asks him for an innocuous spanking; this strikes me as more a reflection on the man than the office.

  4. Brian says at August 18th, 2008 at 11:38 am :
    I was always taught that the word “president” is capitalized when referring to a specifc person (a proper noun), but not when referring to a generic person (a common noun). So both of these are correct:

    President Bush lives in the White House.
    The president lives in the White House.

    Wikipedia, that infallible source of all that is true, says something similar. At a minimum, I’d agree with you that it’s murky, and your personal protest about the respect due to the office is probably falling on deaf ears. But if it makes you feel good, go for it…

    As to Bush’s “good guy” marketing campaign, I think your seriously twisting the facts there to match your personal feelings. Every president / presidential candidate in recent memory has tried to be the “guy you’d want to have a beer with” – c.f., Bill Clinton playing sax on Arsenio, George H.W. Bush in the supermarket, John Kerry on a windsurfer, Obama bowling & shooting hoops, Hillary Clinton literally drinking liquor with common folks at some midwestern bar, etc..

    Also, subsequent to writing this post, I’ve read that Walsh & May-Treanor have actually met President Bush several times (including after their 2004 gold medals), have shared meals with him & Laura, etc.. So yes, this is more about the man than the office. But still, even if one of my best friends became president, I’d like to think I’d still have the decorum to avoid saying/doing something so crass in full view of the press. For not doing so, I give May-Treanor a three-tenths of a point deduction.

    You’ve got capitalization, I’ve got personal opinions of female beach volleyball players. No one cares about either. Moving on…

  5. Jeff Porten says at August 19th, 2008 at 12:01 pm :
    You’re right about current usage. But between around 1787 and 1973, it would generally have been “The President lives in the White House.” I’ve always felt that the capitalized P was part of the trappings of office, distinguishing it from “the president of the PTA.” I’d rank the change as being in the same realm as asking the president for an ass slap, relating to the dignity of the office, and differing primarily that so few of us are in a position to ask the president to pat us on the ass.

    And yes, the “everyman” motif in campaigns dates back at least as far as Andrew Jackson. Not saying that Bush has done anything new there, just that I think some alleged affronts to the dignity of the office are a bit overblown compared to the actions taken by the officeholder.

  6. Kitchen Canisters  says at October 14th, 2010 at 2:18 am :
    my girlfriend really likes volleyball, we also enjoy playing volleyball each afternoon.:,