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09.08.04, 00:21
Bush Using Drugs to Control Depression, Erratic BehaviorBy TERESA HAMPTON*
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.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 Presidentís 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 ìparanoid
megalomaniac 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. Frankís 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 Presidentís health and any drugs or treatment
he may receive are not public record and are guarded zealously by the
secretive care 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 Reaganís second term when aides
managed to conceal the President's increasing memory lapses that signaled the
onslaught of Alzheimerís 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.* Editor, Capitol Hill Blue
