Advantage, blogosphere

The instant I saw the stills of Bush's groping of Chancellor Merkel, I knew it was and should be the indelible image of how our stumblebum in chief is screwing up the G8 summit (and everything else he touches).

At first, the MSM seemed not to get it. But the blogosphere exploded.... and the MSM actually picked up on it. Last night it got prominent play on The Daily Show. Today it was a page one, column one story in the SF Chronicle. Not just the Preznit's gaffe -- the story was about how the Internets gave the story legs. We aren't going to replace Old Media's fact-gathering function any time soon, but we are beginning to influence the editorial function. Would the NYT have issued a correction to the incredible gaffe in Anne Kornblut's Hillary smear if not for the firestorm in the lefty blogs? I doubt it.

Meanwhile, Dubya's harassment continues to reverberate. Today TRex at FDL nailed Merkel's reaction:

Chimpy interrupted a conversation between Chancellor Merkel and Romano Prodi, the new Italian Prime Minister, to give Merkel a rather ham-fisted impromptu shoulder rub, which clearly not only squicked her out, but also managed to piss her off enough to result in the photo at the top of this post, in which she seems to be giving vent to the same frustration that all Reality-Based Americans currently feel toward (him)."

Squicked. I had to look it up, but it is perfect.

Update: via BoingBoing (reverberation is built right into the name), another apt characterization:



(Like Kirk's first officer, Shrub is baffled by many normal human customs. OTOH, Spock was smarter than most humans, so the comparison is flawed.)