Home > Sullen, Depressed President Retreats Into Private, Paranoid World

Sullen, Depressed President Retreats Into Private, Paranoid World

by Open-Publishing - Friday 30 July 2004
2 comments

By TERESA HAMPTON & WILLIAM D. McTAVISH

A sullen President George W. Bush is withdrawing more and more from aides and senior staff, retreating into a private, paranoid world where only the ardent loyalists are welcome.

Cabinet officials, senior White House aides and leaders on Capitol Hill complain privately about the increasing lack of "face time" with the President and campaign advisors are worried the depressed President may not be up to the rigors of a tough re-election campaign.

"Yes, there are concerns," a top Republican political advisor admitted privately Wednesday. "The George W. Bush we see today is not the same, gregarious, back-slapping President of old. He’s moody, distrustful and withdrawn."

Bush’s erratic behavior and sharp mood swings led White House physician Col. Richard J. Tubb to put the President on powerful anti-depressant drugs after he stormed off stage rather than answer reporters’ questions about his relationship with indicted Enron executive Kenneth J. Lay, but White House insiders say the strong, prescription medications seem to increase Bush’s sullen behavior towards those around him.

"This is a President known for his ability to charm people one-on-one," says a staff member to House Speaker Dennis J. Hastert. "Not any more."

White House aides say Bush has retreated into a tightly-controlled environment where only top political advisors like Karl Rove and Karen Hughes are allowed. Even White House chief of staff Andrew Card complains he has less and less access to the President.

Among cabinet members, only Attorney General John Ashcroft, a fundamentalist who shares many of Bush’s strict religious convictions, remains part of the inner circle. White House aides call Bush and Ashcroft the "Blue Brothers" because, like the mythical movie characters, "both believe they are on a mission from God."

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, the man most responsible for waging America’s war on terrorism, complains to staff that he gets very little time with the President and gets most of his marching orders lately from Ashcroft. Some on Ridge’s staff gripe privately that Ashcroft is "Bush’s Himmler," a reference to Heinrich Himmler, Chief of the SS (the German Police) under Adolph Hitler.

"Too many make the mistake of thinking Dick Cheney is the real power in the Bush administration," says one senior Homeland Security aide. "They’re wrong. It’s Ashcroft and that is reason enough for all of us to be very, very afraid."

While Vice President Cheney remains part of Bush’s tight, inner circle, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has fallen out of favor and tells his staff that "no matter what happens in November, I’m outta here."

White House aides say the West Wing has been overtaken by a "siege mentality," where phone calls and emails are monitored and everyone is under suspicion for "disloyalty to the crown."

"I was questioned about an email I sent out on my personal email account from home," says one staffer. "When I asked how they got access to my personal email account, I was told that when I came to work at the White House I gave up any rights to privacy."

Another staffer was questioned on why she once dated a registered Democrat.

"He voted for Bush in 2000," she said, "but that didn’t seem to matter. Mary Matalin is married to James Carville and that’s all right but suddenly my loyalty is questioned because a former boyfriend was a Democrat?" Matalin, a Republican political operative and advisor to the Bush campaign, is the wife of former Bill Clinton political strategist James Carville.

Psychiatrists say the increasing paranoia at the White House is symptomatic of Bush’s "paranoid, delusional personality."

Dr. Justin Frank, a prominent Washington psychiatrist and author of the book, Bush on the Couch, Inside the Mind of the President, says the President suffers from "character pathology," including "grandiosity" and "megalomania" - viewing himself, America and God as interchangeable.

Dr. Frank also concludes that Bush’s years of heavy drinking "may have affected his brain function - and his decision to quit drinking without the help of a 12-step programs puts him at a far higher risk of relapse."

Whatever the cause for the President’s increasing paranoia and delusions, veteran White House watchers see a strong parallel with another Republican president from 30 years ago.

"From what people who work there now tell me, this White House looks more and more like the White House of Richard M. Nixon," says retired political science professor George Harleigh, who worked in the Nixon White House. "It may be 2004 but it is starting to seem more like 1974 (the year Nixon resigned in disgrace)."

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4930.shtml

Forum posts

  • The following reporter obviously doesn’t know the President is on powerful anti-depressants:

    Bush was a parody of himself in Unity speech

    By REKHA BASU
    DES MOINES REGISTER COLUMNIST
    August 11, 2004

    The president spoke to a convention of minority journalists in the nation’s capital last week, and he had many of the 7,000 laughing. Unfortunately, George W. Bush wasn’t joking.

    With lines like "If you can’t read, you can’t read a newspaper," and "I support Congress affirmatively taking action," Bush frequently stated the obvious and contradicted himself in what seemed like a parody of the addled syntax for which he is spoofed on Leno and "Saturday Night Live."

    The reaction to Bush’s performance at the Unity: Journalists of Color convention Friday was a sharp contrast to the reception given the day before to John Kerry, who got a standing ovation and nearly 50 applause breaks. For many non-journalists, that contrast proved the press leans to the left.

    Having been there for both speeches, I have to agree the clapping for Kerry and snickering for Bush were bad form. Reporters shouldn’t be showing approval or disapproval. And it doesn’t really matter that many in the crowd were spectators not covering the event, or that equal respect was shown when Bush and Kerry entered the room. In both cases, people stood and applauded, and later swarmed around the men to shake hands and get autographs.

    Such nuances are easily lost on the public. I often have trouble explaining that opinion writers aren’t bound by the same objectivity rules and are allowed to take sides on an issue. Yet even we aren’t supposed to join boards or political parties, which could make us obligated. Whether covering an event or not, a journalist never really leaves that identity behind.

    That said, I can also say (because I am paid to give opinions) that the president’s performance pretty much matched the reception it got.

    I’ve been there for various Bush appearances - before this one, most recently at a rural-development conference in Des Moines in April. Whatever you thought of his message, he’s always been folksy, confident and in control of his game.

    After my first close-up glimpse of him in a Register meeting in December 1999, I wrote, "In person, Bush has the demeanor of someone who believes in himself but doesn’t take himself too seriously. . . . it’s a relief to see that George W. Bush is his own person, a regular guy who can actually laugh at himself."

    But the Bush whom thousands of us saw last Friday was not on top of his game. He was tense, testy and unprepared. Instead of reaching out to win people, his tone was defensive. His thoughts were muddled.

    He started out thanking the conference sponsor "for the opportunity to bring people from all over the globe, all over the country." For the record, attendees paid their own passage. It was not an international gathering.

    Saying the economy was in a recession when he took office, he added, "That’s why I cut the taxes on everybody. I didn’t cut ’em, the Congress cut ’em. I asked them to."

    On the separation of church and state, he said: "Church should never be the state and the state should never be the church, no question about it."

    On terrorists: "These are people who you must not hope for the best. They will kill you." And later, "That’s why I tell you, you can’t talk sense to them."

    Asked about the post-Sept. 11 arrests of many Arabs and Muslims, Bush said, "I knew people would say, ’There goes a Muslim-looking person, must be a terrorist.’ That’s why I went to a mosque. . . . People were afraid and said, ’We might be next.’ But they weren’t next. And by the way, some were incarcerated and then judged innocent. . . . People must be judged innocent. It’s the best insurance."

    But the line that drew the most snickers was in response to the question from a Native American journalist about conflicts between the federal government and Indian tribes: "What do you think tribal sovereignty means in the 21st century?" Replied the president: "Tribal sovereignty means that. You’re given sovereignty and you’re viewed as a sovereign entity." Besides answering a policy question with word play, Bush was wrong. The idea of "giving" it, of course, directly contradicts the meaning of sovereignty.

    To say, as some did, that Bush couldn’t have anticipated the question or aides should have prepared him is letting him off too easily. Considering one of Unity’s four member organizations is the Native American Journalists Association, and sovereignty has been paramount to Native American concerns since Columbus’ landing. The president’s demonstrated lack of knowledge is alarming. The simplistic responses that seemed cute early on are embarrassing four years into his presidency.

    To be fair, Kerry shouldn’t have gotten a free pass Thursday when he again refused to say whether he would have gone to war with Iraq. But you couldn’t conclude it was pure politics that drove the reaction to Bush, if you compare it to the respect shown to Secretary of State Colin Powell the previous afternoon. Powell talked with authority on a broad range of issues and regions, from what is a genocide to the Iraq war rationale. No one jeered.

    The president did reach out by speaking at Unity. But that’s not enough. The public wants substantive answers, not just words rearranged in sentences.

  • Are you folks aware that George Harleigh, whom you quote, does not exist? That Harleigh is a fictional construct? Please, do a bit more research in the future before publishing. Read all about it here:

    http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/003880.html