Has Bush lost his reason? | Andrew Stephen, Observer / Guardian

[ima_sinnic]

Has Bush lost his reason?

The President's apparent mental fragility should give US voters pause for thought at the ballot box

Andrew Stephen
Sunday October 17, 2004
The Observer

. . . The evidence has been before our eyes for some time, but only during the course of this election campaign has it crystallised - just in time, possibly, for the 2 November election. The 43rd US President has always had a much-publicised knack for mangled syntax, but now George Bush often searches an agonisingly long time, sometimes in vain, for the right words. His mind simply blanks out at crucial times. He is prone, I am told, to foul-mouthed temper tantrums in the White House. His handlers now rarely allow him to speak an unscripted word in public.

Indeed, there are now several confusing faces to the US President, and we saw three of them in the live, televised Presidential debates with John Kerry that culminated last Wednesday night in Tempe, Arizona. In the first debate on 30 September, watched by more than 62 million viewers, we saw Bush at his most unattractive: slouching, peevish, pouting, pursing his lips with disdain at what his opponent was saying. But he was unable to marshal any coherent arguments against Kerry and merely spewed out prepared talking points--in what, even his ardent supporters concede, was Bush's worst-ever such performance. . .

It does not help that Bush now lives in a positively Nixonian cocoon. He does not read newspapers; he sees television only to watch football; he makes election speeches exclusively at ticket-only events, and his courtiers consciously avoid giving him bad news. When he met John Kerry for their first bout on the debating platform, it was almost a new experience for the President to hear the voice of dissent.

A senior Republican, experienced and wise in the ways of Washington, told me last Friday that he does not necessarily accept that Bush is unstable, but what is clear, he added, is that he is now manifestly unfit to be President. . . .

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1329254,00.html

[XanaDUer]

1. Lost his reason?

Doesn't that prepresume he had some to begin with?

Good article, though I don't agree Kerry is a poor candidate.

[BlueEyedSon]

5. Bush never had any, and may be worse than ever. See this

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=79184&mesg_id=79184

[Skittles]

8. I agree

I didn't think Kerry was the best candidate, but I never thought he was a poor candidate.

[kikiek]

2. Wonder if he could have early onset of Alzheimers. I know some think it

is from drinking, but it could be another cause.

[naufragus]

3. Thanks Guardian!

Why cant our media say this.

their desrciption of bush was right on.

it isnt about dem and repugs anymore...this man has got to go. period. its scary to think he could be around until january. i could deal with 3 months of President Cheney.

[The Zanti Regent]

4. Meanwhile our WHORE PRESS keeps blowing him...

...These PRESSTITUTES act just like the fools in Naked Lunch who get addicted on Mugwump juice...

[ismnotwasm]

6. If he ever had any reason, well then, yes, he's lost it.

The guy is a wing-nut of the first order as far as I'm concerned. He may not hear voices, or see things that aren't there, but there is some psychiatric disorder that is not public knowledge. Which leads to all this speculation. There is so much smoke on this issue, it has to be a pretty big fire.

[indigobusiness]

7. Positively Nixonian in pathology

Will We Need a New 'All the President's Men'?

We need it NOW!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/arts/17rich.html?pagewanted=1&th&adxnnl=0&adxnnlx=1098028810-OB8kRJt5JfuvOkV6Jl4VxQ

snip

Early in the Nixon years, a special National Press Club study concluded that the president had instituted "an unprecedented, government-wide effort to control, restrict and conceal information." Sound familiar? The current president has seen to it that even future historians won't get access to papers he wants to hide; he quietly gutted the Presidential Records Act of 1978, the very reform enacted by Congress as a post-Watergate antidote to pathological Nixonian secrecy.

snip

"Every day you read the articles in the States where it's like, 'Oh, it's getting better and better," said Lance Cpl. Jonathan Snyder of Gettysburg, Pa. "But when you're here, you know it's worse every day." Another marine, Lance Cpl. Alexander Jones of Ball Ground, Ga., told Mr. Fainaru: "We're basically proving out that the government is wrong. We're catching them in a lie." Asked if he was concerned that he and his buddies might be punished for speaking out, Cpl. Brandon Autin of New Iberia, La., responded: "What are they going to do - send us to Iraq?"