from Thismodernworld:
August 10, 2004
George W. Bush sucker-punches a rugby opponent at Yale
(Note: this entry posted by Bob Harris)
As long as we're re-examining the 1960s, looking for signs of character, trying to decide if a man who volunteered for combat and was decorated five times was more or less courageous than a guy who didn't even show up for his own medical exam... here's George W. Bush during his college days, hitting a fellow sportsman in the face.
The above photo, credited to the Yale yearbook (the caption is in the original), appeared in yesterday's Los Angeles Times, alongside a story on the appeal of "bad boys" in American politics. It's not in the Times' online version, and the rest of the country should see it, I think.
Incidentally, while rugby is a contact sport, every player knows that tackling above the shoulders is a foul. So is leaving your feet during a tackle. Either of these is serious enough that the other team is immediately awarded a penalty kick, often directly resulting in points for the other team.
So even without throwing a punch, Bush is already well outside fair play.
Grasping an opponent by the back of the head and punching him in the face is beyond the pale -- I've watched rugby avidly for years, and I've never seen it during an open-field tackle like this, honest -- and will typically result in a player being immediately sent off.
I'm sure by next week Karl Rove will have a collection of rugby players claiming that John Kerry was even worse...
UPDATE: Had a delightful email exchange with Jim Sleeper, the Yale political science lecturer who wrote the L.A. Times piece and recently found the above photo in his own Yale class of '69 yearbook. Go click over to Jim's article at the link above; it's good. Several other newspapers will apparently be running the photo and story in their print editions in the next few days. Good news for Jim, us, and the republic.
As to why nobody seems to have noticed this photo before, Jim thinks it's because Bush had already graduated a year earlier, and so nobody looked past the '68 book for Bush stuff.
Strange, then, that this photo would be in the '69 book -- unless Bush was well-known as a thug, and thus it wasn't considered out of bounds to print such a thing about a guy who wasn't there anymore.
I've heard from a few rugby players who conjecture that what we're seeing, while unsportsmanlike and a clear foul (Bush has left his feet and made contact above the shoulders), might be the moment immediately after a incompentently-made dirty tackle, with the arm coming down, instead of the moment before an incompetently-thrown dirty punch, with the arm coming up. But I've also heard from a few who think it's exactly what Yale's yearbook staff said it was. We'll probably never know.
Decide for yourself. Either way, both incompetent and dirty.
As Jim points out in his email... character really is destiny, ain't it?
posted by Bob Harris at 06:52 PM | link
August 10, 2004
George W. Bush sucker-punches a rugby opponent at Yale
(Note: this entry posted by Bob Harris)
As long as we're re-examining the 1960s, looking for signs of character, trying to decide if a man who volunteered for combat and was decorated five times was more or less courageous than a guy who didn't even show up for his own medical exam... here's George W. Bush during his college days, hitting a fellow sportsman in the face.
The above photo, credited to the Yale yearbook (the caption is in the original), appeared in yesterday's Los Angeles Times, alongside a story on the appeal of "bad boys" in American politics. It's not in the Times' online version, and the rest of the country should see it, I think.
Incidentally, while rugby is a contact sport, every player knows that tackling above the shoulders is a foul. So is leaving your feet during a tackle. Either of these is serious enough that the other team is immediately awarded a penalty kick, often directly resulting in points for the other team.
So even without throwing a punch, Bush is already well outside fair play.
Grasping an opponent by the back of the head and punching him in the face is beyond the pale -- I've watched rugby avidly for years, and I've never seen it during an open-field tackle like this, honest -- and will typically result in a player being immediately sent off.
I'm sure by next week Karl Rove will have a collection of rugby players claiming that John Kerry was even worse...
UPDATE: Had a delightful email exchange with Jim Sleeper, the Yale political science lecturer who wrote the L.A. Times piece and recently found the above photo in his own Yale class of '69 yearbook. Go click over to Jim's article at the link above; it's good. Several other newspapers will apparently be running the photo and story in their print editions in the next few days. Good news for Jim, us, and the republic.
As to why nobody seems to have noticed this photo before, Jim thinks it's because Bush had already graduated a year earlier, and so nobody looked past the '68 book for Bush stuff.
Strange, then, that this photo would be in the '69 book -- unless Bush was well-known as a thug, and thus it wasn't considered out of bounds to print such a thing about a guy who wasn't there anymore.
I've heard from a few rugby players who conjecture that what we're seeing, while unsportsmanlike and a clear foul (Bush has left his feet and made contact above the shoulders), might be the moment immediately after a incompentently-made dirty tackle, with the arm coming down, instead of the moment before an incompetently-thrown dirty punch, with the arm coming up. But I've also heard from a few who think it's exactly what Yale's yearbook staff said it was. We'll probably never know.
Decide for yourself. Either way, both incompetent and dirty.
As Jim points out in his email... character really is destiny, ain't it?
posted by Bob Harris at 06:52 PM | link
