Text 69, 89 rader
Skriven 2004-07-28 02:45:22 av RICHARD JOHNSON (1:10/345)
Ärende: Bush in trouble?
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 From Capitol Hill Blue

Bush Leagues
Bush Using Drugs to Control Depression, Erratic Behavior
By TERESA HAMPTON
Editor, Capitol Hill Blue
Jul 28, 2004, 08:09

President George W. Bush is taking powerful anti-depressant drugs to control
his erratic behavior, depression and paranoia, Capitol Hill Blue has learned.

The prescription drugs, administered by Col. Richard J. Tubb, the White House
physician, can impair the President’s mental faculties and decrease both his
physical capabilities and his ability to respond to a crisis, administration
aides admit privately.

ÿIt’s a double-edged sword,ÿ says one aide. ÿWe can’t have him flying off the
handle at the slightest provocation but we also need a President who is alert
mentally.ÿ

Angry Bush walked away from reporter's questions.
Tubb prescribed the anti-depressants after a clearly-upset Bush stormed off
stage on July 8, refusing to answer reporter’s questions about his relationship
with indicted Enron executive Kenneth J. Lay.

ÿKeep those motherfuckers away from me,ÿ he screamed at an aide backstage. ÿIf
you can’t, I’ll find someone who can.ÿ

Bush’s mental stability has become the topic of Washington whispers in recent
months. Capitol Hill Blue first reported on June 4 about increasing concern
among White House aides over the President’s wide mood swings and obscene
outbursts.

Although GOP loyalists dismissed the reports an anti-Bush propaganda, the
reports were later confirmed by prominent George Washington University
psychiatrist Dr. Justin Frank in his book Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of
the President. Dr. Frank diagnosed the President as a ÿparanoid meglomaniacÿ
and ÿuntreated alcoholicÿ whose ÿlifelong streak of sadism, ranging from
childhood pranks (using firecrackers to explode frogs) to insulting
journalists, gloating over state executions and pumping his hand gleefully
before the bombing of Baghdadÿ showcase Bush’s instabilities.

ÿI was really very unsettled by him and I started watching everything he did
and reading what he wrote and watching him on videotape. I felt he was
disturbed,ÿ Dr. Frank said. ÿHe fits the profile of a former drinker whose
alcoholism has been arrested by not treated.ÿ

Dr. Frank’s conclusions have been praised by other prominent psychiatrists,
including Dr. James Grotstein, Professor at UCLA Medical Center, and Dr. Irvin
Yalom, MD, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University Medical School.

The doctors also worry about the wisdom of giving powerful anti-depressant
drugs to a person with a history of chemical dependency. Bush is an admitted
alcoholic, although he never sought treatment in a formal program, and stories
about his cocaine use as a younger man haunted his campaigns for Texas governor
and his first campaign for President.

ÿPresident Bush is an untreated alcoholic with paranoid and megalomaniac
tendencies,ÿ Dr. Frank adds.

Although the exact drugs Bush takes to control his depression and behavior are
not know, White House sources say they are ÿpowerful medicationsÿ designed to
bring his erratic actions under control. While Col. Tubb regularly releases a
synopsis of the President’s annual physical, details of the President’s health
and any drugs or treatment he may receive are not public record and are guarded
zealously by the secretive cadre of aides that surround the President.

Veteran White House watchers say the ability to control information about
Bush’s health, either physical or mental, is similar to Ronald Reagan’s second
term when aides managed to conceal the President’s increasing memory lapses
that signaled the onslaught of Alzheimer’s Disease.

It also brings back memories of Richard Nixon’s final days when the
soon-to-resign President wondered the halls and talked to portraits of former
Presidents. The stories didn’t emerge until after Nixon left office.

One long-time GOP political consultant who ÿ for obvious reasons ÿ asked not to
be identified said he is advising his Republican Congressional candidates to
keep their distance from Bush.

ÿWe have to face the very real possibility that the President of the United
States is loony tunes,ÿ he says sadly. ÿThat’s not good for my candidates, it’s
not good for the party and it’s certainly not good for the country.ÿ

ÿ Copyright 2004 Capitol Hill Blue

 
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