Someone made a video purportedly showing former President George Herbert Walker Bush making a throat-slashing gesture with his right hand at the GOP debate in Houston, Texas, on Thursday night, Feb. 25, 2016.
Since Bush’s son Jeb had already dropped out of the race, some say Bush’s throat slashing was a threat directed at Donald Trump.
Some blogs claim that the camera had captured Bush in a candid moment and Bush wasn’t aware he was being filmed. Those blogs also claim that after the throat-slash gesture had been discovered, the gesture was deleted from videos of the debate. Neither is true.
I always prefer the primary source, instead of someone’s secondary account or, in this case, a snippet taken from who knows what video and from who knows what point in the video. So I went looking for the full CNN video of the debate to see if I can find and confirm that Bush actually had made that hand gesture.
In the video below, at the 0:28 mark, host Wolf Blitzer introduces Bush and wife Barbara. Bush first waves at the crowd with his left hand, then makes what seems to be the throat-slash gesture at the 1:00 mark:
According to Wikipedia, the throat slash gesture can have two meanings:
- To indicate strong disapproval, extreme anger, or displeasure with others or with oneself.
- A signal to stop filming or broadcasting, i.e. “cut”.
In the context of the video, Bush made that gesture when Blitzer introduced him to the crowd, which suggests the gesture was directed at the crowd.
It’s not clear to me that Bush was making the throat-slash gesture. If he was making the throat-slash gesture and meant it as a threat against Trump, then it was brazen, in full view of the crowd — which makes no sense.
What do you think?
Take Our PollH/t FOTM‘s josephbc69
~Eowyn
