The Voice of the White House for September 23rd 2005
I, personally, have never seen Bush drunk but having had a seriously alcoholic sister (she died from it eventually after long years in a hospital with a failing liver) I have some firsthand experience with chronic boozers. Everything I have heard here in DC and everything I have read, aside from hate blogs, indicates that Bush had a serious binge drinking problem and quit cold turkey. He has no AA support system and it is my opinion, and that of other reputable doctors, that such people are very likely to go back on the bottle again under conditions of unexpected stress. That, I am afraid, is what Bush is going through right now.
His immediate staff, which has to be very loyal to him, according to Bush’s demands, protects him from the press and the public to an even greater degree than the Secret Service detail protects him against the many death threats that pour into the White House.
I don’t like Bush but to be fair, this is a subject that has a Scots verdict of ‘Not Proven’ attached to it. Many savvy and very experienced pros here believe it, but no one dares to talk about it because of the savage vindictiveness of the present administration. My God, the White House is full of raging queens, all of whom worship Bush, and yet we have the most hypocritical religious nuts you ever saw here. (As if there were any other kind)
This one is developing legs but Bush’s poll numbers are rapidly approaching very low two digit figures (an I.Q. match for sure) so he might well end up in Bethesda drying out. Look for “taking a series of tests for potential skin problems” to be posted by the asssucks in the Rove office. If that happens, you don’t have to watch him puke during a press conference or try to punch out a questing reporter.
Bush is not a pleasant man sober but drunk, many who have seen him that way years ago tell me, he is a vicious, mean drunk of the type that hits his wife with a leather belt across the face or gets the crap beaten out of him by spitting on a construction worker in a bar.”
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BUSH'S BOOZE CRISIS
September 20, 2005
by Jennifer Luce and Don Gentile
The National Enquirer
Faced with the biggest crisis of his political life, President Bush has hit the bottle again, The National Enquirer can reveal.
Bush, who said he quit drinking the morning after his 40th birthday, has started boozing amid the Katrina catastrophe.
Family sources have told how the 59-year-old president was caught by First Lady Laura downing a shot of booze at their family ranch in Crawford, Texas, when he learned of the hurricane disaster.
His worried wife yelled at him: "Stop, George."
Following the shocking incident, disclosed here for the first time, Laura privately warned her husband against "falling off the wagon" and vowed to travel with him more often so that she can keep an eye on Dubya, the sources add.
"When the levees broke in New Orleans, it apparently made him reach for a shot," said one insider. "He poured himself a Texas-sized shot of straight whiskey and tossed it back. The First Lady was shocked and shouted: "Stop George!"
"Laura gave him an ultimatum before, 'It's Jim Beam or me.' She doesn't want to replay that nightmare — especially now when it's such tough going for her husband."
Bush is under the worst pressure of his two terms in office and his popularity is near an all-time low. The handling of the Katrina crisis and troop losses in Iraq have fueled public discontent and pushed Bush back to drink.
A Washington source said: "The sad fact is that he has been sneaking drinks for weeks now. Laura may have only just caught him — but the word is his drinking has been going on for a while in the capital.
He's been in a pressure cooker for months. The war in Iraq, the loss of American lives, has deeply affected him. He takes every soldier's life personally. It has left him emotionally drained. The result is he's taking drinks here and there, likely in private, to cope.
"And now with the worst domestic crisis in his administration over Katrina, you pray his drinking doesn't go out of control."
Another source said: "I'm only surprised to hear that he hadn't taken a shot sooner. Before Katrina, he was at his wit's end. I've known him for years. He's been a good ol' Texas boy forever.
George had a drinking problem for years that most professionals would say needed therapy.
He doesn't believe in it [therapy], he never got it. He drank his way through his youth, through college and well into his thirties. Everyone's drinking around him."
Another source said: "A family member told me they fear George is 'falling apart.' The First Lady has been assigned the job of gatekeeper."
Bush's history of drinking dates back to his youth. Speaking of his time as a young man in the National Guard, he has said "One thing I remember, and I'm most proud of, is my drinking and partying. “Those were the days my friends. Those were the good old days!"
At age 26 in 1972, he reportedly rounded off a night's boozing with his 16-year-old brother Marvin by challenging his father to a fight, after the senior Bush upbraided him for driving while drunk and smashing into a neighbor’s garbage cans: Washington Post. July 28, 1999; page A1. Washington Post.com. 11 February 2004.
On November 1, 2000, on the eve of his first presidential election, Bush acknowledged that in 1976 he was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol near his parents' home in Maine.
Age 30 at the time, Bush pleaded guilty and paid a $150 fine. His driving privileges were temporarily suspended in Maine.
"I'm not proud of that," he said. "I made some mistakes. I occasionally drank too much, and I did that night. I learned my lesson."
In another interview around that time, he said: "Well, I don't think I had an addiction. You know it's hard for me to say. I've had friends who were, you know, very addicted... and they required hitting bottom (to start) going to AA. I don't think that was my case."
During his 2000 presidential campaign, there were also persistent questions about past cocaine use. Eventually Bush denied using cocaine after 1992, then quickly extended the cocaine-free period back to 1974, when he was 28.
Dr. Justin Frank,
a Washington D.C. psychiatrist and author of Bush On The Couch:
Inside The Mind Of The President, told The National Enquirer:
"I do think that Bush is drinking again. Alcoholics who are not in any program, like the President, have a hard time when stress gets to be great. I think it's a concern that Bush disappears during times of stress. He spends so much time on his ranch. It's very frightening."
The "choking pretzel" incident had nothing to do with a pretzel but was a carefully contrived story used to cover up a Bush drinking spree that resulted in his passing out on a coffee table in the White House second floor residence and injuring his face. Ditto the numerous cases of Bush falling off a bike somewhere to explain further wounds on his face. characteristics of the "dry drunk" in terms of: his incoherence while speaking away from the script; his irritability with anyone (for example, Germany's Schröder) who dares disagree with him; and his dangerous obsessing about only one thing (Iraq) to the exclusion of all other things.
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Dangers of a Drunk Dubya
September 23, 2005
by Doug Thompson
According to the National Enquirer, President George W. Bush, an alcoholic, is drinking again.
In normal times, such a story in a tabloid like the Enquirer would be dismissed as just another fantasy for the newspaper that normally devotes its front page to gossip about celebrity divorces. But an America with Bush as President is anything but normal and too many warning signs point to the sad fact that Dubya the drunk is back on the bottle. Plus we reported the same thing in a story about Bush’s temper tirades on August 25.
Like the President, I’m a recovering alcoholic. Unlike him, I’ve been sober for 11 years, three months and 16 days. Bush says he quit drinking without help from any organized program. I had a lot of help – from family, friends and Alcoholics Anonymous. As an alcoholic, I can say without hesitation that available evidence tells me that Bush is drinking and drinking heavily.
The signs have been there for too long. Bush fell off a couch after, his aides say, “falling asleep.” He has appeared in public with bruises on his face, the kind of injuries a person would suffer from falling in alcohol-impaired conditions. He disappears from public view for extended periods, takes more vacations than other Presidents, has trouble forming words, appears disinterested in public and mangles his sentences. In other appearances he rambles and appears unable to focus. During the Katrina crisis he displayed little emotion or compassion when confronted with the horrors along the Gulf Coast.
This web site reported last year that the White House physician had placed the President on anti-depressants. If Bush is mixing alcohol and anti-depressant drugs his judgment – which is already suspect – is impaired even more.
“The President all too often is out of control,” a White House source tells me. “People are afraid to risk his anger by telling him things he does not want to hear. Newsweek magazine reported the same thing last week in their story: “How Bush Blew It.”
The Enquirer interviewed Dr. Justin Frank, a Washington D.C. psychiatrist and author of Bush On The Couch: Inside The Mind Of The President.
“I do think that Bush is drinking again,” Frank said. “Alcoholics who are not in any program, like the President, have a hard time when stress gets to be great. I think it's a concern that Bush disappears during times of stress. He spends so much time on his ranch. It's very frightening.”
Dr. Frank is a highly-respected psychiatrist at George Washington University and his book about the President’s problems has been praised by other psychiatric experts. We interviewed him last year for the stories about the President’s deteriorating mental state and his conclusions confirm Bush is losing it.
White House aides tell me rumors about the President’s drinking began circulating last year in the West Wing along with questions about possible abuse of prescription drugs. They report wide mood swings, cancelled meetings and an ever-decreasing number of aides with direct access to Bush.
“Two questions that the press seems particularly determined to ignore have hung silently in the air since before Bush took office,” Dr. Frank told us in August. “Is he still drinking? And if not, is he impaired by all the years he did spend drinking? Both questions need to be addressed in any serious assessment of his psychological state.”
It’s scary enough to have a nutcase in the White House. It’s even scarier to think that nutcase may be drunk.
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