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| Water Dragon |
Afer reading this article, I don't believe LSD to be the drug of choice these days. 
Bush Using Drugs to Control Depression, Erratic Behavior
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."
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 by Capitol Hill Blue
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| August 1st, 2004 05:53 AM |
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| Jumping Jack |
At least the GQ spoof claiming Bush was a roadie for the Stones and a James Bond like spy was humorous.
You might want to check the track record for accuracy of the source you are quoting. |
| August 1st, 2004 10:58 AM |
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| Water Dragon |
Oh, do you mean like this....
High Qaeda Aide Retracted Claim of Link With Iraq
By Douglas Jehl
New York Times
Saturday 31 July 2004
Washington - A senior leader of Al Qaeda who was captured in Pakistan several months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was the main source for intelligence, since discredited, that Iraq had provided training in chemical and biological weapons to members of the organization, according to American intelligence officials.
Intelligence officials say the detainee, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a member of Osama bin Laden's inner circle, recanted the claims sometime last year, but not before they had become the basis of statements by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and others about links between Iraq and Al Qaeda that involved poisons, gases and other illicit weapons.
Mr. Libi, who was captured in Pakistan in December 2001, is still being held by the Central Intelligence Agency at a secret interrogation center, and American officials say his now-recanted claims raise new questions about the value of the information obtained from such detainees.
A report in Newsweek magazine several weeks ago first identified Mr. Libi's role in the episode. And the fact that "an Al Qaeda operative" who had provided the most detailed information alleging such ties had backed away from many of his claims was mentioned by the Sept. 11 commission in a brief footnote to the report it issued this month.
The American officials now say still-secret parts of the separate report by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which was released in early July, discuss the information provided by Mr. Libi in much greater detail. The Senate report questions whether some versions of intelligence reports prepared by the C.I.A. in late 2002 and early 2003 raised sufficient questions about the reliability of Mr. Libi's claims.
Separate from the question of Mr. Libi's account, an internal C.I.A. review of its prewar intelligence on Iraq is still under way, continuing a push to evaluate the information used as a rationale for war. The strongest White House assertions of ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda that involved illicit weapons were made beginning in October 2002, when Mr. Bush said in a speech in Cincinnati that "we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases."
In the prelude to the American invasion in March 2003, those claims were echoed often by Mr. Bush and his top advisers, but they have not repeated that allegation for at least six months.
Intelligence officials declined to say precisely when Mr. Libi changed his account, and they cautioned that they still did not know for sure which account was correct. They said they would not speculate as to whether he might have been seeking to deceive his interrogators or to please them by telling them what he thought they wanted to hear.
But the intelligence officials said Mr. Libi had backed away from many of his earlier claims after American interrogators presented him with conflicting information. Both Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah, two other high-ranking Qaeda operatives now in American custody, have told interrogators that Al Qaeda had no substantive relationship with the Iraqi government, according to the Senate report.
Neither the Senate committee nor the Sept. 11 commission have found evidence of a collaborative relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda on any matter, much less illicit weapons, which have not been found in Iraq despite more than a year of intensive searching.
Mr. Libi's reversal was reported to senior administration officials in an intelligence document that was circulated on Feb. 14, 2004, the intelligence officials said.
The Senate report says that a highly classified report prepared by the C.I.A. in September 2002 on "Iraqi Ties to Terrorism" described the claims that Iraq had provided "training in poisons and gases" to Qaeda members, but that it cautioned that the information had come from "sources of varying reliability."
By contrast, it noted that unclassified testimony to Congress in February 2003 from George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, had not included any caveats and thus "could have led the recipients of that testimony to interpret that the C.I.A. believed the training had definitely occurred."
Most public statements by Mr. Bush and other administration officials on the matter described the assertions as matters of fact.
At the time of his capture, Mr. Libi, a Libyan, was the highest-ranking Qaeda leader in American custody. He had worked closely with Abu Zubaydah at the group's Khalden terrorist camp in Afghanistan, and was believed to have detailed knowledge of the terrorist network's plans.
In an address to the United Nations Security Council in February 2003, Mr. Powell referred at length to Mr. Libi's account of an Iraqi role in illicit weapons training, though he did not identify him. He attributed the account to a "senior Al Qaeda terrorist" who "was responsible for one of Al Qaeda's training camps in Afghanistan."
The support by Iraq included "offering chemical or biological weapons training for two Al Qaeda associates beginning in December 2000," Mr. Powell said in his speech, adding that a militant known as Abu Abdullah al-Iraqi had described as "successful" a relationship in which he was sent to Iraq several times between 1997 and 2000 "for help in acquiring poisons and gases."
In recent months, Mr. Powell has spoken publicly of his frustration that some of the central assertions he made in that speech, particularly claims that Iraq possessed illicit weapons, have not been borne out by the facts, despite assurances from Mr. Tenet and the C.I.A. that they were based on solid intelligence.
People close to Mr. Powell say he is less troubled about the episode involving Mr. Libi, believing that the C.I.A. reported his claims in good faith. Similarly, Congressional officials said, the Senate Intelligence Committee did not criticize the C.I.A., even in the classified section of its report, over the Libi matter.
Intelligence officials said Friday that John E. McLaughlin, the acting intelligence chief, was reviewing a 20-page report by Richard J. Kerr, a former deputy director of central intelligence, that constitutes the agency's most extensive internal review of its handling of prewar intelligence on Iraq. The report by Mr. Kerr, which was submitted to Mr. McLaughlin on Thursday, is not expected to be made public, a senior intelligence official said.
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| August 2nd, 2004 06:56 AM |
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| Jumping Jack |
Exactly, the world is full of lying bullshit artists with their own agendas. The moral is, don't believe most of what you here and get confirmation by several sources of what you choose to believe. Disinformation is a way of life in the world today, in the intelligence community, political campaigns, and in the media.
The trend is if you don't like the facts, make up your own, at least half the population will buy it blindly if it reinforces their beliefs. |
| August 2nd, 2004 11:49 AM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
quote:
Jumping Jack wrote:
Exactly, the world is full of lying bullshit artists with their own agendas. The moral is, don't believe most of what you here and get confirmation by several sources of what you choose to believe. Disinformation is a way of life in the world today, in the intelligence community, political campaigns, and in the media.
That's why the "investigative reporter" fulfils an essentianal role. There aren't many good ones and the major news organizations don't usually employ them. They usually freelance. Like they say even Clark Kent needed a day job. |
| August 4th, 2004 03:59 PM |
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| moy |
Chitose Suzuki/Associated Press
Former Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (right) socializes with Bianca Jagger (left) and Jerry Stiller during the Democratic National Convention. Disappointment has followed Townsend since dreams of higher office crashed down with her defeat in the 2002 gubernatorial race.
Convention stirs echoes of KKT's faded future
by Steven T. Dennis
Aug. 4, 2004
The opening phrase of Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's online biography reads like this: "When political pundits talk of the first woman president or vice president, the name of Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is frequently mentioned."
Make that "was" mentioned.
With her gubernatorial defeat in 2002 -- following what her former partner, Gov. Parris N. Glendening, called one of the worst-run campaigns in the country -- Townsend has become a political curiosity, an afterthought amid the hoopla of last week's Democratic National Convention.
It wasn't supposed to be that way, of course. Not for the eldest daughter of Robert F. Kennedy.
In 2000, Townsend had received prominent mentions as Al Gore searched for a vice president. Columnists from Arianna Huffington to the Wall Street Journal's John Fund touted the potential of a Gore-KKT ticket.
In 2002, Townsend and her cousin, Mark K. Shriver, were featured on the cover of Time magazine as the rising stars of the new generation of America's most famous family. The heavy charge of restoring Camelot hung on her shoulders.
And if she had won in 2002, Boston 2004 would have looked much different, at least from a Maryland perspective.
As governor, Townsend would have been immersed in the speculation about who would be the vice president candidate. She would have been a media sensation as a conquering member of the Kennedy clan coming home to Beantown.
Perhaps she would have been talked about as the next attorney general, following in her father's footsteps.
And she would have cast a long shadow over Maryland's other ambitious pols, including Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley and Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan, who are now vying to fill the vacuum at the top of state party politics left by the 2002 disaster.
Today, Townsend continues to soldier on, showing up at the convention last week as a superdelegate, listening to speech after speech about the need for Democrats to unite to take back the job she lost. The trip also was a reunion of sorts, as she attended several Kennedy family events, including a party in Hyannis Port and a park dedication in her grandmother's honor in Boston.
Townsend still has broad appeal in Maryland and nationally, said her former campaign chief, Alan Fleischmann, who accompanied her around Boston last week. She plans to speak in a number of states this fall, hoping to help bolster John F. Kerry's presidential campaign.
Fleischmann said that what is remarkable about Townsend is her willingness to keep fighting despite the setbacks.
"Her utter passion for the Democratic Party and party politics and what it stands for is not diminished," he said. "She's not shied away."
Instead of running the state, Townsend is a professor at Georgetown University and a visiting professor at Harvard University. She is writing a book on the influence of religion in politics. She briefly headed up Operation Respect, an anti-bullying organization launched by Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary.
And while a few speculate that she could run again for political office, perhaps the U.S. Senate, the possibility seems remote and generally brings grimaces from state party operatives still stinging from her defeat. Townsend herself has brushed off such talk, saying that she is focused now on getting Kerry elected.
Asked about what might have been, Townsend said last week that she is not looking back:
"My view is you take what is in front of you and you move forward. I've seen that in many parts of my life." |
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