I first heard this toward the end of Term 1. I can easiliy believe it.
WE HAVE NO CONTROL OVER ANYTHING
WHY DO We BOTHER THINKING WE DO
The facial contusions alone suggest it. My dad's in his mid 60's now, and still does fiield work (biologist, traipsing around collecting fish) on a regular basis. I've never seen him come home with a bunch of skin missing from his face. Bush? several times in 5 years.
Where can we read more about this, from semi-trusted but non-mainstream media?
3: The dings are just love marks from Condi.
I can easily believe it.
That's the problem, though - it's *too* easy to believe. It's the kind of thing people would be saying about Bush regardless of the truth.
That's why I'm having trouble finding a credible source: lefty sites have been saying this almost from the time Bush was elected; but only in the past few weeks have I heard "all the reporters know that...."
Yeah, the repeated facebumps are the main warning signal. How many middle-aged men with desk jobs get visible contusions on their face on a semi-regular basis? Choked on a pretzel my shiny Shakespearean ass.
1) Why would drunkenness lead to contusions on the face? Are we to believe he actually keels over and thrashes around?
2) Whatever happened to that mysterious box on his back? The blogospheric interest in that died down after November 2, 2004.
1) "A falling-down drunk."
2) It was a kevlar vest, I think.
I've got a family friend who was finally shipped off to rehab after breaking her nose, wrist, and ankle in the course of a year. And rolling a car. So, I think being "accident prone" is one of the signs.
I should say that this is just sheer prejudice on my part about the drunken stuff -- it's not like I've seen any evidence. But if it's becoming an open secret that does signal a shift in Bush's position vis a vis the media.
I find the Laura-moves-out thing much harder to believe myself. It's not like the 1st Lady doesn't have her own section of the WH.
The clip at The Smoking Gun shows a rather drunk W, after his supposed renunciation but before his presidency. There are photos of him with drinks, but who knows what's actually in the glass. I can't imagine he doesn't have an efficient and extremely loyal steward, so it's unlikely we'll know that way.
Aren't his annual physical results made public? OK, they are. Adjust your paranoia meters.
I don't know why it should seem so surprising. Haven't we found out that Nixon was a paranoid loon near the end (and maybe an alcoholic), and JFK was doped up more or less constantly?
Has the Enquirer made the charge?
Haven't we got any news that we have to rehearse this hardy perennial?
There are "wet drunks" who reform themselves into "dry drunks" but still engage in "stinking thinking" and reckless behaviors without forethought as to consequences. Why should anyone be surprised.
Haven't we got any news that we have to rehearse this hardy perennial?
OK, here's some news: The New York Times says that carbon offsets are pretty much B.S. and that some parts of Iraq are improving. That neo-con rag, I tell ya...
The guy fell off a fucking Segway- of course he'll fall down just walking on his own feet.
The problem with the whole Anbar-is-improving meme is put neatly by Abu Aardvark: they may have turned against Al-Qa'ida, but they're still opposed to us. And someone overran a post near Ramadi last week. I doubt it was the Cats' Protection League.
18 really ought to come with a baked good. Therefore, I'll refrain from saying anything more than that the first linked article says no such thing.
18, 20 -- Nothing in Iraq ought to be about us. If things really improve, then maybe in Anbar the Baathists will eliminate the Salafists. Then they can almost get to status quo 2002. Except that hundereds of thousands of people are dead, and millions have fled.
As long as the use of fossil fuels keeps climbing -- which is happening relentlessly around the world -- the emission of greenhouse gases will keep rising. The average American, by several estimates, generates more than 20 tons of carbon dioxide or related gases a year; the average resident of the planet about 4.5 tons.
At this rate, environmentalists say, buying someone else's squelched emissions is all but insignificant.
That's about as strong a call of BS as you can get in a straight-news piece.
Also, the article's overall tone is one of skepticism and doubt. Its central point, as I read it, is that by recasting the fight against climate change as one that can be fought by buying offsets instead of by conserving energy, offsets have a net negative impact.
Plus, it implies that at least some of the offsets are, in fact, fraudulent: "Voluntary standards and codes of conduct are evolving in Europe and the United States to ensure that a ton of carbon dioxide purchased is actually a ton of carbon dioxide avoided."
The last time I suspected this. I don't know if Bush is drinking again or not. Could we tell the difference?
Maybe the shift in Bush's position vis a vis the media isn't that he's begun drinking again, but that no one in the "MSM" feels obligated now not to speculate about his drinking again.
The Laura story doesn't even have the feel of good bullshit. But, apparently, the E! editors feel that it is irresponsible not to speculate.
11.2: At the time I read several opinions that if that lump was his bulletproof vest then whoever was putting it on him was doing it wrong. The most credible suggestion I've read is that it's an emergency defibrillator made necessary by the damage done to his body by years of coke and booze, but I should note that by "credible" I mean "pleasing/satisfying in a karmic sense." I actually know nothing about either kevlar vests or defibrillators, those are just the two things I kept seeing discussed everywhere.
Drunks are notoriously clumsy. If Bush's continual pratfalls don't indicate that he's still drinking then they indicate that he drank so hard for so long that he's permanently damaged his body and probably his mind; why this would be news to anyone, though, is beyond me.
As for Laura, I doubt she's "separated" from him so much as they didn't bother winding the big key in her back one morning and retired her to a storage closet somewhere to gaze at the wall blankly and with a vague twist at the corners of her lips that might indicate a smile to one who went looking for it there.
I doubt he is drinking. If he is, it's certainly news, but you would have to actually have evidence of it before you ran with it. Short of breathalyzing that means a credible source willing to go on the record, even anonymously. "Off the record, we're afraid he's drinking again" is not sufficient, no matter how many times you hear it.
Now, that isn't the standard that was followed with the Clinton's, but that's because you had the right wing schlock machine to put it into circulation, and then the mainstream sources could report on the rumors. There's no left-wing equivalent to Drudge or Limbaugh--certainly not with comparable influence. The Nation and the American Prospect don't really go in for this sort of thing; there are left-wing sources that do, but they're not influential enough to generate "people are saying" stories.
There was a time when the press might have had a gentleman's agreement to cover this kind of thing up, but I think those days are past.
All that said, I still doubt it's true.
Pretty sure I've linked this here before (and you'd all probably read it before then anyway), but The Editors had what I consider the canonical response to the Bush-is-Becks-style rumors.
Like if you were to open up his head and look inside you'd see these circus bears riding unicycles around and around in there.
I do so adore this image.
Nixon was much more than a paranoid loon -- he was hooked on Dilantin, probably other pharms too, and if he wasn't an alcoholic, he was at least frequently drunk.
Look to find out about Bush's chemical dependencies in 6 to, say, 25 years.
Was anyone else shocked when Reagan's Altzheimer's came out, that no one was disgraced for having concealed his condition in his second term? It's not absolutely clear that he was losing it by then, but his behavior was certainly enough to give rise to speculation at the time. I was expecting there to be an investigation of his medical condition while in office, and consequences for the people who covered for him if he was medically incompetent. But no one really seemed to talk about that end of it publically.
Re: climate change: A new island has appeared off Greenland.
In defense of the chronically clumsy, let me just note that it is entirely possible to be distressingly accident prone and not be drunk.
Facial injuries are weird, though -- most people protect their faces pretty successfully. I'm a klutz from a klutzy family, and we all trip and fall down more than one would expect sober people to. But we don't end up with visible scrapes on our faces.
31: I think this documents an age gape. There were anecdotes a-plenty about Reagan's likely dementia, but those of us old enough to have been through some cycles even before Reagan's election just assumed the media was in the tank for him. You, just then grown up, probably had a much more idealistic conception of the press' duty to disclose then.
I don't think "cynicism" is the right word for this, since it's not true of me in general, but by 1980 at least I was deeply suspicious of what's now called the MSM.
36: I was a teenage cynic, raised by middle-aged cynics, in the 80s, so I was right on board with you. But in the 80s, all anyone knew was that he was a vague and dithery guy.
What I'm, talking about was in the late 90's, or whenever he was publically diagnosed with dementia. Once that diagnosis was public, I expected backcasting to look into what his medical condition was when in office, and whether there was misconduct in concealing it at the time.
My brother-in-law ended up with a nasty bump on his face this weekend, but it was from getting really drunk and falling down.
I'm a klutz from a klutzy family, and we all trip and fall down more than one would expect sober people to. But we don't end up with visible scrapes on our faces.
Yes, but you aren't out clearing, and falling headfirst into, brush after you've had 15 whisky sours. The brush-clearing lifestyle offers ample opportunities for facial abrasions.
There was a time when the press might have had a gentleman's agreement to cover this kind of thing up, but I think those days are past.
Don't believe that at all.
Speaking of medical coverups, I would be astonished if Cheney lived much past 2009. That man is not well.
I expected backcasting to look into what his medical condition was when in office, and whether there was misconduct in concealing it at the time
But not thinking this would happen in a million years, aside from Bill Moyers-type reports, then as now, is what I meant by cynicism, not the evident dementia itself.
42: Evil is a powerful preservative. Don't put your lunch money down on that.
Oh, true. But that's me being idealistically naive as a grown woman, not as a teenager. It still shows up occasionally.
42: One of the more surreal bits of the 2004 election was the Edwards/Cheney debate, and thinking that they're less than 10 years (I think -- not much more if that) apart in age.
Twelve years. But it looks like a thousand.
48 cross-posted with 47. It's that last six months that adds the 988 years illusion.
44.---True, but once he retires and relaxes, the evil energy will just disappate, and the blood clots will have a chance to get him. And seriously, the guy has doctors on staff ready 24-7---and he's needed them.
But Cheney has some life left in him yet.
Lets not forget that JM thinks all guys should check themselves in for tests immediately.
Wrong JM, after he retires he will become CEO of Halliburton, Bechtel, Blackwate and Shell simultaneously. No time to relax.
To be honest, I think he'll die immediately after leaving office just to spite us.
And as to 52, I had a medical conversation with two 30-ish male friends this weekend. One of them had recently had tuberculosis (!!) and had completely freaked out about it, and the other has within the last three years 1) broken his elbow and required extensive surgery and physical therapy, 2) passed a kidney stone during his orals, 3) discovered that he had dangerously high levels of cholestoral. Perfectly healthy-seeming, the both of them.
passed a kidney stone during his orals
And my, wasn't she surprised.
JM, that's a heck of away to display a lack of familiarity with the classics of horror. After he leaves office he'll be able to feast more freely on the blood of innocents. On the meager diet afforded him by the spotlight of holding office it's no wonder he hasn't had the chance to regenerate. All the other vampires think it's terribly gauche, of course, but what's a Veep to do?
Re: Cheney, the Un-Dead cannot die ...
That is not dead, which can eternal lie ...
41:
When I'm talking about a "gentleman's agreement" whose time has passed--I remember reading an interview with a newspaper editor about how the FBI trying to leak info. about Martin Luther King's sex life to the southern, extremely-pro-segregationist press & no one would report on it. Do you think that'd be true now? I don't. There's certainly an in-club feeling but it manifests itself differently. If they had a sufficiently credible, on on-the-record source for a story about Bush drinking, I think they would report it.
Now, they are cozy with the politicians, in ways that make me sick, perhaps even more than in the past. So it's possible that they know something newsworthy "off the record" & have not made a serious effort to get it on-the-record. You read about things like Tim Russert having a working understanding w/ most politicians that a conversation is off the record unless explicitly put on-record....that could create a situation where "everybody knows" & yet the public doesn't.
You could call that a gentleman's agreement too, but it's not an agreement that certain subjects are out-of-bounds; it's a more generalized agreement to suck up to the powerful.
What makes the term "gentleman's agreement" so anachronistic, and in fact absurd, is that the sense of honor, of standards that a gentleman will uphold at whatever cost to himself, is completely gone.
You can argue just how much reality there ever was to that honor; I wonder myself. But nobody believes much in it any more. We believe in decency, just not in an acknowledged code of what it is and isn't, so that an act will be understood and acknowledged.
"After he leaves office he'll be able to feast more freely on the blood of innocents"
You want to stay away from blood and organ meats and whathaveyou when you have a heart condition. Really a danger of retirement for Cheney.
But when you're actually undead, blood keeps you going. Of course it's also possible he merely offers it as a sacrifice to his satanic masters.
