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Bush Using Drugs to Control Depression, Erratic Behavior
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Tomas
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Jul 31, 2004 13:40 PDT
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By TERESA HAMPTON
Editor, Capitol Hill Blue
Jul 28, 2004, 08:09
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 wondered 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
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