Author: Ed Weathers

RESOLUTIONS FOR THE IRRESOLUTE

Impeach George W. Bush!

Yeah, right. And while you’re at it, come up with a cure for the common cold.

It’s true, Bush should be impeached for putting American soldiers in harm’s way without a declaration of war by Congress. Article 1, section 8 of the Constitution makes it clear that only Congress can declare war. The only time a president can unilaterally pursue military action is when an instant response is required to an actual attack on the nation or when such an attack is unquestionably imminent and there’s no time for congressional action. Considering how the Iraq situation has dragged on over the months, it’s obvious that the only attack that’s ever been “imminent” is our own.

So Bush should be impeached.

But he won’t be. Why not? First, because Congress has happily washed its hands of the matter. Second, because the courts shudder and squeeze their eyes shut like spinsters whenever someone asks them to look at the constitutional mess. And, third, because the majority of the American people, having forgotten whatever they learned in 8th grade civics, just don’t seem to give a damn.

As a result, when it comes to making war, the United States no longer has a president, it has a Caesar. In fact, since 1945, it has had a series of Caesars.

In the entire history of the U.S., Congress has declared war just five times: for the War of 1812, the Mexican-U.S. War (1846-1848), The Spanish-American War (1898), World War I and World War II.

That’s all.

Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Kuwait, Kosovo–in these and dozens of other places since World War II, American soldiers have killed and been killed. And in every case, Congress and the courts have weaseled out of their responsibility for seeing that the president abided by our system of checks and balances.

The current situation is playing out in typical fashion: Instead of sucking it up, debating the issue and voting yes or no for a war against Iraq, the House and Senate back in October passed a resolution giving the president the power to use the armed forces “as he determines to be necessary” in Iraq. In other words, they have simply handed over their Constitutional responsibilities. Senators and representatives did this for one of two reasons: 1) they trust the president to behave wisely in Iraq or 2) they’re terrified of being labeled soft on national security. By passing such a resolution, they absolve themselves of any blame if things go badly in an Iraq war but get credit for supporting military action if things go well. Democratic congressmen are particularly craven in all this, since, as the loyal opposition, they should be most responsible for reining in a Republican president. But the Democrats would rather be soft on the Constitution than on national security. For them, the Iraq resolution was handy cop-out.

A similar resolution, you’ll recall, was passed before the first Gulf War in 1990, and of course the mother of all such resolutions was the Tonkin Resolution passed in 1964 that supposedly gave Presidents Johnson and Nixon the power to prosecute the Vietnam War.

In almost every one of these nonwar wars, someone has gone to the courts to point out the constitutional, um, irregularities involved, and in every case the courts have declined to touch the issue. Back in 1990, before the first Bush’s Gulf War, a federal court declared, with the pure poetry of pusillanimity, that the suit contesting the president’s right to go to war on his own lacked “ripeness” because it wasn’t clear that war was in fact imminent. Last month, six U.S. Congressmen and the families of several soldiers ordered to the Near East to fight Iraq filed suit in Boston to have a federal court declare George W. Bush’s coming Iraq war unconstitutional absent a Congressional declaration of war. (If you missed the news about this case, blame the mainstream U.S. media, which pretty much ignored it. After all, it’s just the Constitution.) This time the federal judge decided that the lawsuit dealt with “political questions in the legal sense that are beyond the jurisdiction of the court.” This decision was less poetic than the one back in 1990, but just as pusillanimous. The judge was essentially saying that it is not up to the federal courts to decide a question of constitutionality. Which of course raises the question: If not the courts, then who? Donald Rumsfeld? John Ashcroft? The Emperor himself?

So here we are. War, as I write this, is probable within days, if not hours. And there’s nothing our elected representatives or our courts will do even to question it.

But wait, there is hope on the horizon. The resolution passed back in October requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of any military action against Iraq and to submit to Congress a report on the military campaign every 60 days. The 1973 War Powers Act further requires the president to explain the “circumstances necessitating the introduction of the U.S. Armed Forces” into any field of battle, and after 60 days of fighting, the President must either end the military action or get Congressional approval to extend it.

I look forward to hearing the president’s explanations for war in Iraq and, if Congress has the guts to invoke the 60-day rule, to see how he justifies keeping troops there longer than two months. If President Bush and his minions maintain the same level of honesty they have shown in the run-up to the war, maybe something positive will happen yet. After all, as I understand it, perjury before Congress is still an impeachable offense.

I have a problem. Make that, two problems.

The first is that my father, like many fathers the world over, is an email addict. He sends to me and untold others more political emails in one day than any non-cybernetic being could realistically be expected to read.

This is not an isolated problem.

A good friend of mine commiserated only yesterday that her own father- a business partner of Henry Kissinger- sends her no less than fifteen emails daily on a variety of subjects, including jewelry making, dog-walking, real estate and the composition of chocolate bars. Surely these dads have better things to do?

But I am hardly in a position to throw stones. I understand the lure of the internet as well as any of the verbose fathers of my acquaintance. Love of the electronic realm is at the heart (no pun intended) of my second problem: I am a thief.

I wasn’t raised a thief. I never put a package of Ho-Ho’s down my pants at the local Kwik-E-Mart. I’ve never taken two papers out of a stand after paying for one. I don’t even take pennies out of the take-a-penny tray. And yet, every year I acquire in excess of $10,000 of material for which I did not pay. And, if you have a child over the age of 7, your kid is a thief, too.

We steal information.

On my computer, I currently have every episode of ‘The Simpsons’, ‘Star Trek’, and the late, lamented ‘Family Guy’. I have a few episodes of ‘Dr.Katz’, a whole sheaf of ‘Mystery Science Theater 3000”s, and almost the entire run of Michael Moore’s definitive series, ‘The Awful Truth’. The popular show ‘Scrubs’ is still running- so I only have every episode up to last week. But maybe you’d rather watch a movie? How about ‘X-Men’, ‘Spiderman’, ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’, the great independent movie ‘Secretary’, the original ‘Duck Soup’, or the restored version of 1942’s ‘Holiday Inn’? I have ‘The Incredible Hulk’. It’s due to be released in two months.

I only have hundreds of movies. That’s not much when you compare it to the amount of music which I illegally possess. Perhaps you’d care to browse through the tens of thousands of CD’s I “own”?

You wouldn’t be alone.

All of my friends have browsed my collection, and I theirs. It’s how our collections and computer knowledge grows: trading with friends, finding an IRC server, or downloading from an eDonkey site. I have never heard anyone express remorse of any kind for this massive theft. It costs 20 cents for the recording industry to buy and burn a wholesale CD. It costs $19.95 for you to buy a retail CD. At Best Buy the other day, I saw a ‘Star Trek’ DVD collection. EACH season cost $149.99. Just for comparision, I decided to download the entire series. It took 27 hours and cost me $0.00, for a savings of only $1,199.00.

So now you know: I am a thief. And there’s nothing anyone can do about it. File-sharing programs these days, like eDonkey (and unlike Kazaa and Napster) are utterly anonymous. No one can find out which computer has been downloading any file, not even the owners of the server. And when eDonkey in time becomes entrenched in the political imbroglios that brought down the likes of Kazaa and Napster, two more, made by college students like myself, will rise up to take its place. It’s the hydra of the 21st century.

I worry about those email addicted fathers. They worry about the war. I want to console and reassure them, to give them advice from my own struggles on how to deal with a heartless multinational corporation like the U.S. government, but in my heart I know they must learn on their own. If only they had our experience, the grand sum of our successes and failures in our fight for free(music)dom. But you know grown-ups: try to tell them anything, and they’ll dig in their heels and lay back their ears.

A pathetic skeleton crew of anti-war protestors haunts my university campus. They’re easy to pick out: sad, dull-eyed, sheep-faced individuals with placards dragging on the ground behind them. We try not to make eye contact, knowing that they are doomed to both failure and public censure. If our generation has learned anything, it’s that any institution worth bringing down can only be brought down from the inside out. Every large corporation worth its Enron stock these days knows better than to leave the front door unguarded. Participating in anti-war rallies, using infamous trading software like Napster- only a fool would attack the most heavily guarded points. Bush comes out with empty concilatory phrases that manage to co-opt the anti-war slogans of the anti-war protestors. Napster is now run by the recording industry.

It is pointless to debate an enemy with an army of lawyers and speechwriters. The wiliest anti-war advocates I know aren’t master debaters. The most powerful sentences they string together are written, not in English, but in code. Five of these hackers can do more against the war than every e-mailing father in the country.

Things in the Middle East have gone terribly wrong for the U.S. Army. Though the so-called “media” (still trying to charge for information- they’ll be going the way of the recording industry soon) wasn’t able to pick up the information, a huge number of computer glitches have plagued the troops already stationed near the Iraqui border. Food is misdelivered, supplies go astray, messages arrive at their destinations garbled and unreadable- a supply of munitions, when unpacked, was revealed to mysteriously be a thousand boxes of Kleenex.

Our poor fathers. They worry themselves to distraction about the impending war, debating endlessly yet not actually doing anything, clinging to the limited success they won protesting in the 1960’s. If only we could send them a coded message, just a little reassurance to them on this new 21st century war: “Don’t worry. We’ve got it under control. The crow flies at midnight. And thanks for buying us our first computer”.

(Editor’s note: Ciara Neill is a student at Tulane University. The ‘dad out there’ in this instance is the publisher of The Memphis Flyer, who — as mentioned — has something of an Internet habit himself.)

FOREIGN AID

“Sheet!”

Tennis umpire Donna Williams of Memphis was calling a college match last year when she heard a female player from France shout that after losing a point. When Williams threatened to impose a point penalty for cursing, the girl protested that she was merely saying “move your feet,” loosely translated, of course, in French.

Williams was unmoved. In her career she has been verbally abused by the best of ’em, including Jimmy Connors in his nasty prime. Suspecting zees ees bullsheet, she ordered the miffed mademoiselle to “lose that word!”

Like other officials, Williams carries a one-page list of forbidden phrases in eight languages, from knulla (Swedish for the f-word) to figlio di putana (Italian for son of a bitch) to couilles (French for balls) to puta (Portugese for whore). Poofter, poo-jabber, wanker, and fanny (don’t ask me) are also off limits in addition to the familiar favorites.

A working knowledge of polyglot profanity is a handy thing to have in the new era of American college sport. Long before the the Memphis Grizzlies and the NBA signed players like Pau Gasol and Yao Ming, the University of Memphis, Christian Brothers University, and other area colleges were heavily recruiting athletes from Australia, Ireland, Austria, and South America. A college tennis or soccer tournament these days is basically a little United Nations Assembly for jocks.

While state lawmakers cut programs to balance the budget and cobble together a lottery to help Tennessee students go to state colleges and universities, those same institutions are awarding full athletic

scholarships worth $15,000 a year or more to scores of foreign students. (In contrast, Bicentennial Scholars — in-state students who make high grades and a 31 or better on the ACT — get tuition-only scholarships, and the proposed lottery scholarships are in the $3,000-$4,000 range.)

Most of these scholarships are in non-revenue-producing sports like tennis and soccer. U of M men’s basketball coach John Calipari has been criticized for recruiting far-flung junior-college players like Chris Massie who stay a year or two at the expense of the local talent. But on the U of M women’s tennis team, which has eight full scholarships, freshman Kristen Noble of Germantown is not only the only Tennessean, she’s the only American. Her seven teammates are from England, Spain, Austria, and India.

The U of M is hardly unique, nor is it fielding powerhouse teams. Last year’s Lady Tiger tennis team was 5-16, losing to the likes of Troy State and Louisiana-Lafayette all stocked with international players. Memphis, in fact, is probably one of the more exemplary programs. Its women’s tennis coach, Charlotte Peterson, is a U of M graduate in her 28th season and men’s coach Phil Chamberlain, a native Australian, is himself a product of the international system. Tennis players’ GPAs tend to be the highest of all the jocks.

Chamberlain came to the U of M in 1973 as one of the top junior players in Australia when it was the reigning world tennis power. Foreign college players were still novelties.

“I didn’t know a single thing about Memphis,” said Chamberlain. “My intentions were to get my degree and maybe go on the pro tour. But I played enough great players to realize I didn’t have it.”

He wound up becoming a teaching pro at The Racquet Club, paying back his debt to his adopted country many times over as one of the guiding forces of Memphis junior tennis and the Kroger St. Jude tournament.

But he puts no pressure on his five current international players to follow the same path, and he says the university and athletic department don’t either. Some stay, some don’t. They play because they’re better, not only better tennis players but better all-around athletes, with multi-sport backgrounds in soccer, rugby, or cricket. Chamberlain makes no apologies to local players. All eight graduates of the Racquet Club’s junior program were placed in college tennis programs last year, although few are good enough to play in the Southeastern Conference or Conference USA.

“I could not compete with American kids only,” Chamberlain said. “Every American kid I recruit has 25 schools after him.”

The United States Tennis Association, which spends about $7 million a year on junior development programs, is well aware of this. “We’re encouraging colleges to adopt a maximum number of foreign players,” said John Callen, executive director of the Southern Tennis Association in Atlanta. “But it hasn’t been met with any success from a coaching standpoint.”

A handful of college tennis coaches, including Anne Dielen at Birmingham Southern only award scholarships to Americans. All eight of her women’s players are Americans, and five of them are from Alabama. “I kind of feel like our scholarships (worth $27,000 a year) need to go to American kids because we are American colleges and universities, and as long as there is healthy competition that is all that we need,’ said Dielen, whose husband is Dutch. ÔWe certainly don’t have the opportunity to export some of our student-athletes to get free educations over there.”

Not wishing to sound preachy, Dielen said it ultimately depends on the pressure on the coach to win. Birmingham Southern, an NAIA school, is about to become a full-fledged member of Division 1. I said I would check back with her in five years.

“Well then,” she laughed, “I might not be here.”

TO ON THE FLY:

Someone passed [Ed] Weathers’ latest assertion of his first amendment rights to me and I felt so sickened that I had to respond. I was not sickened by his descriptions of torture so much as his preaching to the audience without doing his homework. Apparently he read a story in the [New York] Times (not very closely) and felt compelled to comment.

We do NOT torture people at the Bagram Holding Facility (temporary home for up to 100 people picked up in Afghanistan as part of the war on terrorism). The only time the detainees are naked is when they are searched at admission and when they shower. There is a very good reason we don’t give out many details as to treatment…not to disguise torture, but to keep our methods out of the enemy’s hands. Doctors visit the facility twice a day to treat any who need it. The International Committee of the Red Cross sends an inspector every ten days.

And by the way, the two detainees who died, did so in December…not last week. They also constitute the only two detainees who have ever required treatment for injuries sustained in the facility (whether they were injured there is part of the investigation…the injuries may have pre-existed their stay at Bagram).

Mr. Weathers seems to take on faith the words of former detainees about their treatment, but refuses to grant the same faith to the words of Lt. Gen. McNeill, the coalition commander here….

Regards,

Roger King

Colonel, US Army

Bagram, Afghanistan

ED WEATHERS RESPONDS:

…[The mentioned detainee did die] in December. It was the description of his death that came out last week.

As for the rest of it, I stand by my original position. To the best of my knowledge, no neutral observers are visiting Khalid Shaikh Mohammed or other high-level Al Qaeda operatives–nor do neutral observers even know where they are. There is an inherent contradiction in the colonel’s description of the state of things even at Bagram, of course: He says we are letting the Red Cross visit “every 10 days,” but he also says we’re not letting out the details of the prisoners’ interrogation. So the Red Cross really isn’t seeing how they’re being interrogated–if they were, then the details of their interrogation might be “getting out.” I wish I did trust Lt. Gen. McNeill’s word as much as that of former detainees, but they have less to gain by misinformation than he does.

Perhaps it comes down to the Colonel’s definition of torture. I consider that torture includes the following: sleep and light deprivation, the withholding of food and water, the withholding of pain-killers from those who are wounded, being subjected to extremes of cold and heat, being hooded for hours, being forced to kneel for hours, being forced to stand for hours, being left naked for hours, and prolonged isolation. According to press reports in both liberal and conservative papers, “senior U.S. officials” have acknowledged such treatment of prisoners.

For the record, The United Nations Convention Against Torture also includes, in its title, “Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment,” and it states uncategorically that such treatment is never justified. The U.S. signed this convention. I wonder if Colonel King can officially deny that any prisoners at Bagram have been or are being treated in any of the ways described above. If so, I am very pleased. I wish I believed that that were the case for all prisoners taken by the United States.

Memphis Parent magazine picked up six awards in a national journalism competition sponsored by Parenting Publications of America (PPA). The awards were presented March 1st during PPA’s annual conference in Los Angeles.

The awards recognize excellence in writing, photography, and design. In the 30,000 to 55,000 circulation category, Memphis Parent earned a second-place Silver Award for general excellence. Judges noted it was a “compelling publication” and the “topics

are wide-ranging and original.” The monthly magazine also received awards in the following categories:

First place, News Feature:

“Trading Retirement for Child Rearing,”

by Jane Schneider, editor.

Second place, Column: “Living

in the Moment,” by Jane Schneider.

; Second place, Column — Family Matters: “Work and Family”

by Katherine Perry and Kathy Martin.

Third place, Column — Pub-lisher’s/Editor’s Note: “Living in

the Moment” by Jane Schneider.

Third place, Column — Family Fun: “Day Tripping: Spring Beauties and Tasty Food Producers,” by Jane Schneider, Linda Ricci, and Margie Sims.

Memphis Parent is produced by Contemporary Media, publisher of The Memphis Flyer and Memphis magazine. This year’s Editorial and Design Awards drew more than 700 entries. Headquartered in Los Angeles, PPA is a nonprofit, national organization representing more than 150 parenting magazines and newspapers in the United States, Canada, and Australia.

(Katherine van Wormer is Professor of Social Work at the University of Northern Iowa, and is co-author of the recent Addiction Treatment: A Strengths Perspective (2002)’.)

Ordinarily I would not use this term. But when I came across the article “Dry Drunk” — Is Bush Making a Cry for Help?’ in ‘American Politics Journal’ by Alan Bisbort, I was ready to concede … in the case of George W. Bush, the phrase may be quite apt.

“Dry drunk” is a slang term used by members and supporters of Alcoholics Anonymous and substance abuse counselors to describe the recovering alcoholic who is no longer drinking — one who is dry, but whose thinking is clouded. Such an individual is said to be ‘dry’ but not truly sober.

Such an individual tends to go to extremes. It was when I started noticing the extreme language that colored President Bush’s speeches that I began to wonder. First there were the terms — “crusade” and “infinite justice” that were later withdrawn. Next came “evildoers,” “axis of evil,” and “regime change,” terms that have almost become cliches in the mass media.

Something about the polarized thinking and the obsessive repetition reminded me of many of the recovering alcoholics/addicts I had treated (a point worth noting is that because of the connection between addiction and “stinking thinking,” relapse prevention usually consists of work in the cognitive area).

Having worked with recovering alcoholics for years, I flinchedat the single mindedness and ego- and ethnocentricity in the President’s speeches (my husband likened his phraseology to the gardener character played by Peter Sellers in the movie, Being There). Since words are the tools — the representations — of thought, I wondered what Bush’s choice of words said about where he was coming from. Or where we would be going.

First, in this essay, we will look at the characteristics of the so-called “dry drunk” — then we will see if they apply to this individual, our president — and then we will review his drinking history for the record.

What is the dry drunk syndrome? “Dry drunk” traits consist of: Exaggerated self-importance and pomposity grandiose behavior. A rigid, judgmental outlook. Impatience. Childish behavior. Irresponsible behavior. Irrational rationalization. Projection. Overreaction.

Clearly, George W. Bush has all these traits except exaggerated self-importance. He may be pompous, especially with regard to international dealings, but his actual importance hardly can be exaggerated. His power, in fact, is such that if he collapses into paranoia, a large part of the world will collapse with him.

Unfortunately, there are some indications of paranoia in statements such as the following: “We must be prepared to stop rogue states and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies and friends.” The trait of projection is evidenced here as well, projection of the fact that we are ready to attack onto another nation which may not be so inclined.

Bush’s rigid, judgmental outlook comes across in virtually all his speeches. To fight evil, Bush is ready to take on the world, in almost a Biblical sense. Consider his statement with reference to Israel: “Look my job isn’t to try to nuance. I think moral clarity is important … this is evil versus good.”

Bush’s tendency to dichotomize reality is not on the Internet list above, but it should be, as this tendency to polarize is symptomatic of the classic addictive thinking pattern. I describe this thinking distortion in ‘Addiction Treatment: A Strengths Perspective’ as either/or reasoning — “either you are with us or against us.” Oddly, Bush used those very words in his dealings with other nations. All-or nothing thinking is a related mode of thinking commonly found in newly recovering alcoholics/addicts. Such a worldview traps people in a pattern of destructive behavior.

Obsessive thought patterns are also pronounced in persons prone to addiction. There are organic reasons for this due to brain chemistry irregularities; messages in one part of the brain become stuck there. This leads to maddening repetition of thoughts. President Bush seems unduly focused upon getting revenge on Saddam Hussein (“he tried to kill my Dad”), leading the country and the world into war, accordingly.

Grandiosity enters the picture as well. What Bush is proposing to Congress is not the right to attack on one country but a total shift in military policy: America would now have the right to take military action before the adversary even has the capacity to attack. This is in violation, of course, of international law as well as national precedent.

How to explain this grandiose request? Jane Bryant Quinn provides the most commonly offered explanation in a recent Newsweek editorial, “Iraq: It’s the Oil, Stupid.” Many other opponents of the Bush doctrine similarly seek a rational motive behind the obsession over first, the war on terror and now, Iraq. I believe the explanation goes deeper than oil, that Bush’s logic is being given too much credit; I believe his obsession is far more visceral.

On this very day, a peace protester in Portland held up the sign, “Drunk on Power”. This, I believe, is closer to the truth. The drive for power can be an unquenchable thirst, addictive in itself. Senator William Fulbright, in his popular bestseller of the 1960s, ‘The Arrogance of Power,’ masterfully described the essence of power-hungry politics as the pursuit of power; this he conceived as an end in itself. “The causes and consequences of war may have more to do with pathology than with politics,” he wrote, “more to do with irrational pressures of pride and pain than with rational calculation of advantage and profit.”

Another “dry drunk” trait is impatience. Bush is far from a patient man: “If we wait for threats to fully materialize”, he said in a speech he gave at West Point, “we will have waited too long.” Significantly, Bush only waited for the United Nations and for Congress to take up the matter of Iraq’s disarmament with extreme reluctance.

Alan Bisbort argues that Bush possesses the characteristics of the “dry drunk” in terms of: his incoherence while speaking away from the script; his irritability with anyone (for example, Germany’s Schroeder) who dares disagree with him; and his dangerous obsessing about only one thing (Iraq) to the exclusion of all other things.

In short, George W. Bush seems to possess the traits characteristic of addictive persons who still have the thought patterns that accompany substance abuse. If we consult the latest scientific findings, we will discover that scientists can now observe changes that occur in the brain as a result of heavy alcohol and other drug abuse. Some of these changes may be permanent. Except in extreme cases, however, these cognitive impairments would not be obvious to most observers.

To reach any conclusions we need of course to know Bush’s personal history relevant to drinking/drug use. To this end I consulted several biographies. Yes, there was much drunkenness — years of binge drinking starting in college, at least one conviction for DUI in 1976 in Maine, and one arrest before that for a drunken episode involving theft of a Christmas wreath. According to J.D. Hatfield’s book, ‘Fortunate Son’, Bush later explained: “[Alcohol began to compete with my energies …I’d lose focus”. Although he once said he couldn’t remember a day he hadn’t had a drink, he added that he didn’t believe he was “clinically alcoholic.” Even his father, who had known for years that his son had a serious drinking problem, publicly proclaimed: “He was never an alcoholic. It’s just he knows he can’t hold his liquor.”

Bush drank heavily for over 20 years until he made the decision to abstain at age 40. About this time he became a “born again Christian,” going as usual from one extreme to the other.

During an Oprah interview, Bush acknowledged that his wife had told him he needed to think about what he was doing. When asked in another interview about his reported drug use, he answered honestly, “I’m not going to talk about what I did 20 to 30 years ago.”

That there might be a tendency toward addiction in Bush’s family is indicated in the recent arrests or criticism of his daughters forunderage drinking and his niece for cocaine possession. Bush, of course, deserves credit for his realization that he can’t drink moderately, and his decision today to abstain. The fact that he doesn’t drink moderately may be suggestive of an inability to handle alcohol.

In any case, Bush has clearly gotten his life in order and is in good physical condition, careful to exercise and rest when he needs to do so. The fact that some residual effects from his earlier substance abuse — however slight Ð might cloud the U.S. President’s thinking and judgment is frightening, however, in the context of the current global crisis.

One final consideration that might come into play in the foreign\ policy realm relates to Bush’s history relevant to his father. The Bush biography reveals the story of a boy named for his father, sent to the exclusive private school in the East where his father’s reputation as star athlete and later war hero were still remembered. The younger George’s achievements were dwarfed in the school’s memory of his father. Athletically he could not achieve his father’s laurels, being smaller and perhaps less strong. His drinking bouts and lack of intellectual gifts held him back as well. He was popular and well liked, however.

His military record was mediocre as compared to his father’s as well. Bush entered the Texas National Guard. What he did there remains largely a mystery. There are reports of a lot of barhopping during this period. It would be only natural that Bush would want to prove himself today, that he would feel somewhat uncomfortable following, as before, in his father’s footsteps.

I mention these things because when you follow his speeches, Bush seems bent on a personal crusade. One motive is to avenge his father. Another seems to be to prove himself to his father. In fact, Bush seems to be trying somehow to achieve what his father failed to do — to finish the job of the Gulf War, to get the “evildoer” Saddam.

To summarize, George W. Bush manifests all the classic patterns of what alcoholics in recovery call “the dry drunk.” His behavior is consistent with barely noticeable but meaningful brain damage brought on by years of heavy drinking and possible cocaine use. All the classic patterns of addictive thinking that are spelled out in my book are here: the tendency to go to extremes (leading America into a massive 100 billion dollar strike-first war); a “kill or be

killed mentality;” the tunnel vision; “I” as opposed to “we” thinking; the black and white polarized thought processes (good versus evil, all or nothing thinking).

His drive to finish his father’s battles is of no small significance, psychologically. If the public (and politicians) could only see what Fulbright noted as ‘the pathology in the politics’. One day, sadly, they will.