- 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.
-
- President George W. Bush is taking 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."
-
- 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.
-
- The exact drugs Bush takes to control his depression
and behavior are not known. 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."
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- © Copyright 2004 by Capitol Hill Blue
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