King George

We all learned in school as we sat in our places with sunshiny faces that the Constitution provides for three branches of power, viz. the executive, the legislative and the judiciary. And there is a balance between them. Bush may have been absent on that day. Nevertheless, George is aggressively increasing the power of the executive and weakening the legislative branch. When Congress passes a law, George maintains that he will interpret that law as he sees fit. And often that is the exact opposite of what Congress intended. He does this with a “signing statement” that he files separately and states that he will interpret the bill as he wishes. Bush has maintained repeatedly that he is the decision maker and that he has the power to ignore the laws as written. In short, he is above the law. If so, he has unilaterally overturned the Constitution and he is now King. It’s great to be King. Something the founding fathers anticipated by writing a Constitution that provided for a balance of power.

According to a number of psychiatrists, Bush is a psychopathic personality demonstrating definite signs of megalomania. Monarchs suffering from megalomania can be very dangerous to the world. Check out the causes of WWI. (See Tuchman, The Guns of August.) As the late Senator Fulbright wrote, wars are caused more often by pathology than politics.

But Bush has other pathological problems as well. Primarily, his behavior demonstrates the pattern of the “dry drunk”. This is a term used by Alcoholics Anonymous to refer to individuals who have stopped drinking but are not really sober. Their patterns of thought are still similar to when they were drunk. Bush loses focus easily and therefore has an attention deficit disorder. Bush drank for 20 years and at some point also used cocaine. At age 40 he became a “born again Christian” and stopped drinking. However, he was never treated for alcohol abuse. Typically he denies he was an alcoholic. Long periods of drinking, according to experts, do cause brain damage and can be permanent. A good example is his inability to talk coherently when he is not reading a script. Another illustration is his tendency to repeat constantly a thought as though his brain was stuck in a groove. One member of his cabinet who resigned some time ago was appalled by his lack of attention at meetings and his apparent inability to even ask questions regarding a topic that he might have known very little about.

His reliance on Cheney and Rumsfeld indicates his need for constant advice and reassurance. He is the puppet and Cheney is his handler. His simplistic understanding of right and wrong as expressed in his repeated mantra “If you are not with us, you are against us”, is another example of his inability to distinguish between reality and fantasy.

Finally, he claims he is compassionate and patient, but he is neither. It is another personality deficit of a “dry drunk”.


References:

Drew, Elizabeth. Power Grab. N.Y. Review, 6/22/06.
Frank, Justin, M.D. Bush on the Couch. Harpers, 2004.