No, George...

THAT heifer didn't need a milkin'...

July 20, 2006 -- It looks as President Bush is taking a hands-on approach to foreign policy - actually massaging the neck of a shocked German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the G8 summit in Russia this week.

The impromptu neck rub - and Merkel's horrified expression - was caught on tape by a Russian TV crew covering the meeting of world leaders, where Bush walked up behind the German leader and unexpectedly laid his hands on her shoulders.

Merkel, 52, the daughter of a Protestant minister, immediately threw her hands up in the air and flashed a look as if she had just been groped on a city subway.

The odd encounter took just a few seconds, with Bush moving on, allowing Merkel to resume her discussion with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi. But the episode became fodder for Web sites around the globe.

"Bush: Love Attack on Merkel," screamed a headline on the Web site for Germany's Bild Zeitung magazine. Other sites referred to the president at "Groper in Chief."

Liberal Web sites in the United States likened Bush to a workplace sexual harasser.

"You could use this video for sexual harassment training. It's something you'd show and say, 'No one in a boss' position should be doing that," Martha Whetstone, a Democratic operative from California, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

But conservative pundits on the Internet defended the president as an affable, down-home Texan who is used to public displays of friendship.

Fox News political analyst Karen Hanretty said the outraged reaction shows how "President Bush just can't win."

"Aren't these the same women who have been angry about cowboy diplomacy?" she asked. "Do they want a kinder, more sensitive Bush - or a cowboy?"

To the "Democratic 'operative' sow that likened George's neck rub to a horny boss, sorry, fatso, but she wasn't his employee, okay. W touches a woman and it's improper, but Clinton could rape them and all was well. Disgusting double-standard harridans, aren't they? Then again, that's what the Democratic party is all about though, isn't it. Double standards.

And hey, I can understand how the touch of a man's hand might send old Merkel into shock. Can't happen all that often. George probably wanted to sucker punch the old bag but caught himself in the nick of time, so good job, Mr. President. Not that a unilateral massage is acceptable by Loon standards, but kudos for not cold cocking the witch.