Posted on 12/19/2005 11:49:53 AM PST by CedarDave
Gov. Bill Richardson likes to touch people. He hugs, pokes, jabs and tickles. Looking to start a conversation, he might lean forward and head-butt someone— male or female.
Bored on an airplane flight? He'll lick his finger and smudge an aide's glasses. Richardson says he's just joking and teasing to ease tension and boredom.
Lt. Gov. Diane Denish [a Democrat] says she finds the practice irritating. She said she tries to avoid sitting or standing next to the governor at public events. She said the governor's personality is "one of charisma, joking, joshing," but also used some other words to describe his hands-on approach.
"I think it's irritating and annoying," Denish said in a recent interview. "I try not to put myself in that situation, trying not to stand or sit next to him."
Others who work with the governor say it doesn't bother them.
Denish, who also used the terms "teasing," "adolescent" and "silly," made the comments after looking at photos taken at a groundbreaking ceremony for a train depot in Bernalillo. Seated next to Denish, Richardson reached his hand behind her chair, turned to her and grinned.
Denish said the governor was poking at the side of her leg. It went on for five or 10 minutes— the state's bored governor picking at the lieutenant governor, who tossed him some exasperated glances as he caught her eye and laughed.
"He pokes me," Denish said when she was asked about the incident. At other times, she said, "He pinches my neck. He touches my hip, my thigh, sort of the side of my leg." She said that he has never touched her in an improper way but that such physical contact in a public setting was inappropriate because it could be misconstrued.
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
A particular bully in fifth grade used to get a kick out of doing this to me, until my cousin taught me how easy it was to break someone's finger.
No wonder Monica refused to work at the UN with this creep.
He'll lick his finger and smudge an aide's glasses.
A co-worker did this to me a few months back. He's yet to figure out who put a dab of poison ivy oil in the ear piece of his phone.
Anyone who has spent much time with Richardson has probably witnessed his displays of physicality. Surprising a group of teenage girls at an event in Albuquerque last year, for example, he pulled the junior-high stunt of buckling their knees from behind. Approaching a reporter at a bill-signing ceremony, he introduced himself with a head butt. Appearing at a Santa Fe junior high, Richardson grabbed a boy and held him in a headlock.
The guy's nuts! I wonder how he greets the North Koreans?
LOL! During an exercise, my team chief smeared the inside of my gas mask with the oil from the herrings he ate for lunch. Of course, I got him back, I filled the nose piece of his (where you couldn't see it) with icy-hot. The UN almost had to step in to stop the war.
Hehe. That's a good one there. Someone should do that to Fatboy.
how has this guy avoided a lawsuit?
Good strong fingernails come in handy at these times too.
He's a democrat.
Remind me not to stand too close to Bill Richardson.
Oh, you mean the RAT governor who helped waste tax dollars when he let the Texas RAT Senators hole up at an I'll-be-a-turkey hotel boozing it up around the hot tub.
Yeah, that one.
We used to put black shoe polish on the Junior officer's binoculars. What a hoot. You could also do it to the radar viewing cover, but there was always the chance that the C.O., or one of the O's with clout would come up and look through it. That would be baaaaadddd.
If we had a situation at work where a direct subordinate female had to resort to "avoiding" and "not sitting near" her boss, that boss would be fired.
Like it or not, that is the definition of harrassment, and intolerable work environment.
And if my daughter was knee-buckled by an adult male, I would definitely report them to the authorities. That can be very dangerous, and is also flirtatious -- and what is a grown man doing flirting with teenaged girls?
Same one that is going to waste more tax dollars to help Brandson build Mos Cruises.
Governor, your name is Bill Richardson, not Todd DiLaMuca.
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