Help please Did bush use "hand sanitizer" after shaking Obama's hand?

[Botany]

Links please or is that just a rumor on the "internets?"

[Dogmudgeon]

1. Probably a rumor. For all his faults, Bush isn't racist.

Well, not personally racist ...

--p!

[AlexinVA]

3. It's true...

It's in Obama's book "Audacity of Hope." ABC News played the audio version of that episode Monday evening.

[AlexinVA]

5. NY Times mentions episode...

in its review of Obama's book:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/books/17kaku.html

[Dogmudgeon]

6. Hmm ... that's a surprise. But not a big one.

--p!

[Beausoleil]

13. Shrubby even offered Obama a "squirt". n/t

[JI7]

2. probably not, but i think Obama should have used it

[Alter Ego]

4. Yes, but I don't think it had anything to do with Obama's race...

It's in "Audacity of Hope" where Obama describes their first meeting. The President shakes Obama's hand, puts some Purell on his hands, then offers some to Obama and says "Want some? Good stuff--keeps you from getting colds."

[JHB]

10. That was my take: he does that after shaking anyone's hand...

...especially on occasions where he's shaking a lot of hands.

People cough and sneeze into their hands, they usually shake with the same one that holds the toilet paper when they wipe, scratch parts of themselves you sometimes don't care to know about, etc. You never know where they've been or what's been on them lately.

I'd expect a politician to be a little more sensitive to the unintended message obvious sanitizer use sends, but that sort of observation has never been Bush's strong suit.

[peekaloo]

7. Better yet does he use hand sanitizer after holding hands with Saudis or

just chapstick for his lips?

[SpiralHawk]

18. "Smirk." - Commander AWOL

[ChairmanAgnostic]

8. he used it after every meeting with anyone.

a growing number of pols are using it.

[gollygee]

9. He must have some kind of OCD issue or something - he does it with everyone

not just Obama.

[surrealAmerican]

22. You made me imagine him as Lady Macbeth.

He definitely has blood on his hands.

[connecticut yankee]

11. Apparently

many people use it after shaking hands.

Donald Trump refuses to shake hands with anyone.

Shaking hands is a germ-spreader.

In the book "American Wife," a fictionalized biography of Laura Bush, the "President's wife" tells about using Purell after shaking hands with large groups of people.


edit: typo

[elizfeelinggreat]

12. Fox News article and link:

The title and subtitle of this article is:

First Bush-Obama Meeting: Hard Feelings and Hand Sanitizer

As President Bush and President-elect Barack Obama prepare for their post-election meeting at the White House on Monday, memories of their first encounter linger.


You can't tell if he quoted the entire passage (including the hand sanitizer) to him but from this it is certain that the administration is aware Obama wrote about it. There has been no denial from Bush or his team that it happened or that would surely have been included here.

When I quoted from this passage to Bush during an Oval Office interview, the president seemed irritated to learn he had been taken to task by the senator he once counseled.

I thought I was actually showing some kindness," Bush said indignantly. "And out of that he came with this belief?"

The president added with a bit of a scowl: "He doesn't know me very well."

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/11/09/bush-obama-meeting-hard-feelings-hand-sanitier/

[Botany]

15. bush is a Classless ass-f***

Calling him by his last name .... not Mr., not Senator not President Elect ..... but Obama.


"Obama!" Bush exclaimed, according to Obama's account of the meeting in his second memoir,
"The Audacity of Hope." "Come here and meet Laura. Laura, you remember Obama. We saw him
on TV during election night. Beautiful family. And that wife of yours -- that's one impressive lady."

The two men shook hands and then, according to Obama, Bush turned to an aide, "who squirted
a big dollop of hand sanitizer in the president's hand."

[elizfeelinggreat]

17. yep

He sure is.

[TCJ70]

21. And then after that he...

...offered some to Obama. Seriously, the guy probably shakes a lot of hands. Sanitizer is a good idea to prevent colds and such.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

16. Bush sounds psychotic in this excerpt:

"Suddenly it felt as if somebody in a back room had flipped a switch," Obama wrote. "The president's eyes became fixed; his voice took on the agitated, rapid tone of someone neither accustomed to nor welcoming interruption; his easy affability was replaced by an almost messianic certainty. As I watched my mostly Republican Senate colleagues hang on his every word, I was reminded of the dangerous isolation that power can bring, and appreciated the Founders' wisdom in designating a system to keep power in check."

[MiniMe]

14. I would imagine that somebody in that position would be wise to sanitize

after they shake hands with everybody. Especially with the way W picks his nose. He shakes hands with a lot of people, and he would probably be sick a lot of the time if he didn't. As long as he does it with everybody, it is fine. Since he has an aide following him with a bottle of purell, I imagine that he does it with everybody.

[riverdeep]

19. He used hand sanitizer, but not 'to get the black off him'.

He apparently does that as a general habit, and offered Obama some.

In an era of communicable diseases that get spread around by hands, maybe the hand shaking thing needs to end anyway.

[dorkulon]

20. Made me think of Adrian Monk.

"Wipe!"