By D.A. Blyer
I wish I'd had the opportunity to watch the president back in his Yale days when
he was drinking with the Skull and Bones crowd and branding KE fraternity
pledges with hot pokers. He was clearly at the top of his game back then. Even
classmate Garry Trudeau, whose Doonesbury cartoons have regularly skewered the
commander-in-chief, admits that the young partying Bush had "awesome social
skills" and was "extremely skilled" at controlling people and outcomes with
perfectly placed petit fours of humiliation.
These talents singled out George as a man to be reckoned with in subsequent
years. For who else could have set up an oil exploration company, incurring
catastrophic losses for investors, yet emerge dancing a jig, personally well in
the black? Who but George could have borrowed $600,000, invested it in the
Texas Rangers, and turned it into 15 million in cold hard cash? Only a man of
staggering genius, that's who.
And then the boom fell. As popular legend has it, George became a teetotaler on
turning 40, after a raucous night of birthday boozing in Colorado.
According to the president, this sudden about-face was part of a "broader
spiritual awakening" on his part and caused by the realization that alcohol was
beginning to sap his energy and compete for his affections.
From what I've gleaned from Bush's behavior over the years, I'm not buying it.
An equally likely scenario finds George caught in a Broadmoor resort hot-tub
with a Filipino chamber-maid by a none-too-happy Laura Bush, who demanded the
next day that either the booze goes or she goes. While I have no salacious
proof of this incident, other than the word of a sauced-up Texan in a Bangkok
girlie bar, it seems wholly more reasonable than George's Road to Damascus
story.
The following 14 years of sobriety inflicted a heavy toll on George's talents.
Though he managed to assume the presidency, the nation has clearly witnessed a
broken man over the past four years: the mangled speech and problems reading,
the bicycle and Segway tumbles, the unfortunate incident with the pretzel. Even
his gallant attempts at swagger somehow always come off half-baked and
impotent. It's been like watching Popeye walk through a world without spinach
tins.
I for one think the American public deserves to see a fair fight between Bush
and Kerry for the remainder of the race, each man at peek fitness, especially
during the debates. It's time to see that bravado George exhibited when he
challenged Bush the Elder to go "mano y mano" after smashing his car into
poppy's garbage can. That's the kind of mettle demanded in this uncertain
century. It's time for Bush to welcome back his loyal friend.
Though Laura will surely balk on seeing the bottle again, George must be
resolute, reminding her that he is, after all, this century's embodiment of
Winston Churchill, that great British statesman whose favorite libational toast
was "I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me," and
who reminded civilization that history tells us "never trust a man who has a
not a single redeeming vice" — and that her husband is sorely in need of
regaining our trust. George can even rally the White House doctors to his
purpose, having them cite the recent Whitehall Study, where British scientists
made the startling discovery that for middle-aged subjects, increasing levels
of alcohol consumption were associated with better cognitive function and that
these benefits appeared greatest among the heaviest drinkers, those drinking
more than 30 highballs, or five full bottles of table wine, a week. To not
re-open the wet bar would be plain stupid.
Happily, George won't have to drink alone. He's got the twins on the campaign
trail with him. It'll be a family affair.
http://www.rawstory.com/exclusives/blyler/drinks_for_george_918.htm
--
"There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas -- that says, fool
me once, shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."
http://www.diymedia.net/audio/mp3/tdntb-bushwack2.mp3
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