Could this be true...if we only knew...

On Sun, 15 Aug 2004 21:55:10 -0700, Mark wrote
(in message <M8WdncvQMsC3o73cRVn-gA@speakeasy.net>):

On Sun, 15 Aug 2004 20:48:08 -0700,

Could this be true...if we only knew...

Could be.

But it isn't.

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.

"It's a double-edged sword," says one aide. "We can't have him flying off

the handle at the slightest provocation but we also need a President who

is alert mentally."

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 reporters' questions about his relationship with

indicted Enron executive Kenneth J. Lay.

"Keep those motherfuckers away from me," he screamed at an aide
backstage.

"If you can't, I'll find someone who can."

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 "paranoid

meglomaniac" and "untreated alcoholic" whose "lifelong 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 Baghdad" showcase Bush's instabilities.

"I 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," Dr. Frank said. "He fits the profile of a former drinker
whose

alcoholism has been arrested but not treated."

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.

"President Bush is an untreated alcoholic with paranoid and megalomaniac

tendencies," Dr. Frank adds.

The White House did not return phone calls seeking comment on this

article.

Although the exact drugs Bush takes to control his depression and
behavior

are not known, White House sources say they are "powerful medications"

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 wandered 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 - for obvious reasons - asked

not to be identified said he is advising his Republican Congressional

candidates to keep their distance from Bush.

"We have to face the very real possibility that the President of the

United States is loony tunes," he says sadly. "That's not good for my

candidates, it's not good for the party and it's certainly not good for

the country."

© Copyright 2004 Capitol Hill Blue

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