With his job-approval ratings drastically dropping for handling domestic
woes and the increasingly unpopular Iraq war, President Bush
nevertheless persists on "staying the course" -- disconnected from reality. Mr. Bush's display of
inconsistencies, indifference, and denial to the deteriorating
circumstances of America -- domestically and internationally -- raises serious questions about
his mental state and his abilities to continue as a leader of a nation.
According to his book, Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President (New York: Harper Collins, 2004), and two subsequent interviews on July 26, 2004 and Jan. 20, 2005 with Executive Intelligence Review, Dr. Justin Frank presented an alarming revelation
-- Bush has multiple mental illnesses. Once headed the Washington
Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, Dr. Frank is a leading
psychoanalyst who teaches at George Washington University Medical
Center. In 2002, he became concerned about Bush's abnormal behavior.
Using applied psychoanalysis, a scientific method of studying historical
figures and foreign leaders, Dr. Frank reached his conclusions based on
massive amounts of public documentation
-- autobiographical and biographical accounts, public video footage of
the President, and statements by Bush's associates and relatives. This
is the first case study of applied psychoanalysis on a sitting
president.
Dr. Frank diagnosed the President suffering from Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD); an Oedipal Complex; untreated and uncured
alcoholism ("dry drunk"); paranoia; sadism; psychical reality; and a
megalomania complex. He keenly observed that Bush throughout his entire
life has been struggling to manage his anxiety. It is through various
ways of managing anxiety that Bush has revealed his psychoses. Dr. Frank
explained, "…[1] first to manage anxiety is through alcohol. But, by being a
born-again Christian, [2] he can also manage anxiety by being connected
to God, by feeling that he'll be saved in any kind of a rapture, by feeling that he's always on
the side of the Good…[3] to make other people anxious, so he can project his anxiety into the rest of us…[4] to simplify things; to divide the world, his own inner world, into good and bad, into black and white…[5] to be cruel
to other people, by making them anxious, and by gratifying your own
sense of power to compensate for feeling helpless…[6] to become detached
from the consequences of his behavior."
Erratic Behavior
White House aides have been increasingly worried about Bush's wide mood
swings and tirades. They report obscene outbursts, cancelled meetings
and a shrinking number of aides who have direct access to Bush.
According to Capitol Hill Blue, Col. Richard J. Tubb, the White
House physician, has prescribed anti-depressant drugs for Bush to
control his erratic behavior, depression and paranoia.
Untreated alcoholism
It is known that Bush is an admitted alcoholic, although he never sought
treatment in a formal program, and that his allegedly cocaine abuse in
the earlier years haunted his campaigns for Texas governorship and for
his first-term presidency. When Bush turned 40 years old, he substituted
religion for alcohol, which is common among untreated alcoholics. Since
2001, the White House has tried to dispel the rumors that Bush is back
on the bottle by claiming that Bush's recurring facial bruises, bodily
injuries, and loss of consciousness had been caused by falling off his
bike or choking on a pretzel.
Hearing God's Voice?
In Bob Woodward’s book, Plan of Attack (Simon
& Schuster, 2004), Bush confessed to Woodward that he asked God for
advice before starting the Iraq war and that God wanted him to be
president. And the White House promoted this very book when it came out
in print. In a recent BBC documentary series, Palestinian Prime Minister
Abu Mazen, and his Foreign Minister, Nabil Shaath, recounted their
first meeting with President Bush in June 2003, when Bush declared that
God had told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq and to solve the problem
in the Middle East.
Paranoia
It has become a standard practice for Bush to search and screen everybody
and everything whenever he appears at a town meeting or in a public
building in the United States. His photo-ops had often been
choreographed and prepared beforehand because he was so afraid of having
any questions or comments that might have disagreed with him. Bush's
paranoia heightened when he demanded the Chilean government to screen
invited guests (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit leaders) to a
dinner for weapons before entering the presidential palace on November
21, 2004. To placate Bush, President Ricardo Lagos of Chile
"disinvited" more than 200 guests, according to New York Times (Nov. 22, 2004).
Streak of Sadism
Although Bush often portrayed himself as a compassionate conservative, his
actions have proven otherwise -- indifference to human suffering. When he was a child, he used
firecrackers to explode frogs. At the annual Radio and Television
Correspondents Dinner in March 2003, Bush made jokes about the failure
to find the weapons of mass destruction, while tens of thousands of
Iraqis and a thousand American soldiers died by his lies about WMD.
Although the Pentagon tried to pin the sadistic tortures at Abu Ghraib
on a handful of undisciplined soldiers, it’s now obvious that Bush, as
the Commander-in-Chief, had approved the systematic brutal tortures to
be carried out in prisons throughout Afghanistan, Iraq and in Guantanamo
Bay. More recently, the U.S. Senate approved 90-9 a bill banning
military and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to use torture,
nevertheless, a presidential waiver has been proposed in that bill to
allow the CIA to continue to do so on foreign detainees in U.S. custody
outside the United States.
Disconnected from Reality
Dr. Frank's assessment of Bush's psychical reality and megalomania complex
has been made credible by the President's recent actions in dealing with
the Hurricane Katrina disaster, the nomination of Harriet Miers to the
Supreme Court, and talks of not ruling out military actions against Iran
and Syria -- the former accused of developing nuclear weapons and the latter
suspected of harboring terrorists.
As for the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe, Bush would always be remembered for two candid shots
-- a photo of him laughing and playing a guitar at a speaking event in California the day after New Orleans nearly submerged under water; and a video of him viewing the hurricane-ravaged area on Air Force One, while people below were crying for help and dying.
Even with the recent debacle of Hurricane Katrina's relief efforts managed by his cronies' Michael Brown of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Michael Chertoff of Homeland Security, President Bush nominated
another crony, Harriet Miers, who lacks experience as a judge, to the
highest court of the land -- the Supreme Court. He's not only mocking
other prominent sitting Supreme Court judges with years of experience,
but also attempting to degrade the judicial system of the United States. Under severe criticisms from Congress both Democrats and Republicans -- Miers withdrew from her nomination a few days ago.
It's now known that Bush had lied to the Congress and the public into a war
with Iraq based on false evidence of Iraq possessing weapons of mass
destruction and of Iraq being a terrorist state threatening the U.S.
Yet, Bush and his henchmen are now using the same accusations to incite war with Iran and Syria.
Grandiose Schemes
Dr. Frank points out that Bush's condition will get worse because a
megalomaniac person wants to control more things and challenge more
traditions to feed his desperation to manage anxiety.
On the domestic front, Bush has tried to push for Social Security reform
even though the program is working well; introduced Intelligent Design
to be taught in classrooms as an alternative to the scientific theory of
evolution; and, ironically, launched a nationwide mental illness
screening program in government institutions, including all public school students from kindergarten to the 12th grade.
On the international front, Bush has claimed that he is trying to spread
democracy in the Middle East (by military force) and that he's campaigning for a global war against terrorism (an enemy without an army, nation, or borders).
From what we have seen of Bush for more than four and a half years, could we honestly say he's fit to be the President of the United States? And could we realistically say he's good for America, for the world, and for humanity? In Dr. Frank’s warning words,
"Bush will not stop of his own choosing. He will only have to be stopped."
And Bush can be stopped by invoking the constitutional Twenty-fifth Amendment
-- removal of a sitting president for his inability to conduct presidential duties.
(First published on UniOrb.com, October 31, 2005)
