Is Bush Out of Control?
Said On Anti-Depressants
By Doug Thompson
8-15-5
Buy beleaguered, overworked White House aides enough drinks and they
tell a sordid tale of an administration under siege, beset by bitter
staff infighting and led by a man whose mood swings suggest paranoia
bordering on schizophrenia.
They describe a President whose public persona masks an angry,
obscenity-spouting man who berates staff, unleashes tirades against
those who disagree with him and ends meetings in the Oval Office with
"get out of here!"
In fact, George W. Bush's mood swings have become so drastic that
White House emails often contain "weather reports" to warn of the
President's demeanor. "Calm seas" means Bush is calm while "tornado
alert" is a warning that he is pissed at the world.
Decreasing job approval ratings and increased criticism within his own
party drives the President's paranoia even higher. Bush, in a meeting
with senior advisors, called Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist a
"god-damned traitor" for opposing him on stem-cell research.
"There's real concern in the West Wing that the President is losing
it," a high-level aide told me recently.
A year ago, this web site discovered the White House physician
prescribed anti-depressants for Bush. The news came after revelations
that the President's wide mood swings led some administration staffers
to doubt his sanity.
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.
As a recovering alcoholic (sober 11 years, two months, nine days), I
know all too well the symptoms that Dr. Frank describes and, after
watching Bush for the past several years, I have to, unfortunately,
agree with him.
Conversations over the last few weeks with longtime friends who work
in the Bush White House confirm even more what Dr. Frank says and
others have suggested.
The President of the United States is out of control. How long can the
ship of state continue to sail with a madman at the helm?
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