For each of four consecutive days this week, a woman has come forward and accused former President George H.W. Bush of sexually harassing them during photo ops over the past handful of years. The first, second, and third women all told similar stories of meeting the elder Bush president backstage at events or productions while he allegedly grabbed their rears from the vantage point of his wheelchair. All three women also mentioned how he told a lewd joke (about “David Cop-A-Feel!”) while doing so. The fourth woman has come forward with a story that’s slightly different.
The Press Herald reports that a former Republican Maine state Senate candidate, Amanda Staples, has alleged that Bush groped her during a Walkers Point photo shoot (near a Bush compound), but the incident in question took place in 2006. You can see a screencap of the photo right here. Bush is not yet wheelchair-bound and is standing next to Staples as the two pose alone. In the caption to her photo, she wrote that he “grabbed my butt and joked saying ‘Oh, I’m not THAT President.'”
One can only guess who Bush was referring to when he joked about “THAT” former commander-in-chief, but Staples wrote that “I can only imagine how many women have had their butt grabbed in a photo op.” She also added that she’d never want any daughter of hers to simply “shrug it off because he was president.” Considering how the other Bush accusers have all mentioned that people laughed over their accounts of being fondled by an ex-president, and a Bush spokesperson argued that GHWB grabbed women’s behinds in a “good-natured manner,” Staples’ words are necessary ones.
(Via Press Herald)