Friday, November 04, 2005

Bush going nuts?

PRESIDENT George W Bush is increasing throwing tanctrums and could make a major blunder by losing his temper at a public appearance anytime if provoked by pointed questions and implied criticism, his aides fear. They also fear that he might not be able to serve the remaining three years of his second presidential term.
According to reports in the press and websites, Bush, faced with a failed agenda, destroyed credibility, dwindling public support over the Iraq war and other domestic issues, is frequently lapsing into Alzheimer-like periods of incoherent babbling.
His behaviour is said to have split the White House into loyalists and those who believe that his political advisor Karl Rove should resign in order to restore some coherence to the administration. However, that does not address the president's declining mental state and his ability to restore credibility with Congress and the American people, his critics say.
Chief of Staff Andrew Card is said to have told Bush that he would resign if Rove does not quit, and the dispute has erupted at staff meetings, according to reports.
At a recent meeting in the presidential retreat of Camp David, Bush lost his temper to the extent that he walked out of the room telling everyone in the room to "go f..k yourselves," according to Doug Thompson, editor of Capitol Hill Blue and a veteran American journalist.
With every setback, Bush tends to become increasingly “edgy” or “nervous” or “unfocused" and goes from apparent coherent thought one moment to aimless rambles about political enemies and those who are “out to get me," says Thompson.
“It’s worse than the days when Ronald Reagan’s Alzheimer’s began setting in,” Thompson quotes an unamed Republican activist as saying. “You don’t know if he’s going to be coherent from one moment to the next. What scares me is if he lapses into one of those fogs during a public appearance.”
Bush has always had trouble focusing during times of stress, is increasingly distant during meetings, often staring off into space during discussions on the nation’s security and other issues.
Quite often, Andrew Card, the chief of staff, has to step in to speak on behalf of Bush, who is on anti-depressant medication.
Prominent psychiatrist Dr. Justin Frank of George Washington University, has suggested that Bush, a one-time alcoholic who claims he quit without any professional help, is back to drinking again.
Newsweek, The Washington Post and the New York Daily News have confirmed our earlier reports about Bush’s temper tantrums.
“Bush usually reserves his celebrated temper for senior aides because he knows they can take it,” according to the Daily News. “Lately, however, some junior staffers also have faced the boss’s wrath.”
“This is not some manager at McDonald’s chewing out the help," the paper quoted a source with close ties to the White House as saying. “This is the president of the United States, and it’s not a pleasant sight.”
“The president has lost his focus, his ability to govern and the trust of the American people,” according to Thompson.. “Those are things that are difficult to recapture when you’re on top of your game and this president has taken one too many blows to the head.”