-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.radix.net/~tarpley/bush25.htm <A HREF="http://www.radix.net/~tarpley/bush25.htm">Bush book: Chapter -25-</A> --[25a]-- George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography --- by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter -XXV- THYROID STORM Caesar non super grammaticos (The emperor cannot defy the grammarians.) --Marcus Pomponius Marcellus to Tiberius When speaking in his capacity as an ideologue, George Bush has always expressed a great admiration for Theodore Roosevelt. When Bush moved into the Oval Office, he removed the portrait of Calvin Coolidge placed there by Reagan and replaced it with a likeness of the Rough Rider. Bush's references to his devotion to Theodore Roosevelt are strewn across his public career, and especially his White House years. They came thick and fast during the period of the Panama invasion, but were also prominent during the Gulf crisis. Here is one from late November, 1990: Certainly I get inspiration from Teddy Roosevelt. Actually there's a parallel, not an exact parallel obviously, between San Juan Hill and Kuwait City. I've just been reading an interesting treatise on Teddy Roosevelt; his conviction and his determination and his leadership inspire me. All of those things inspire Presidents, I think. [fn 1] Bush's endorsement for Teddy Roosevelt is an endorsement for a world outlook and for a policy orientation. Inseparably from that, it is also a statement of affinity for a certain form of psychopathology that is associated with Teddy. As one of the authors has shown [fn 2], Roosevelt's maternal uncle was Captain James D. Bulloraiders Alabama, Shenandoah, and others. Theodore Roosevelt's elevation to the presidency represented a personal union between the New York-Boston patrician financiers with the secessionist slaveholders. First and foremost, Teddy Roosevelt was a political steward of the Morgan interes ts which dominated Wall Street. We see that Teddy Roosevelt's networks shared some essential features with those of George Bush. In many ways, these are the same networks. In outlook and policy, Theodore Roosevelt was the president who elevated the solidarity of the white race, and especially of its alleged "Anglo-Saxon" component, above the ideas of the American Revolution. The argument was that shared "blood," language, culture, and the other bonds among the "English- speaking peoples" were far more important than the American System of Franklin, Washington, Hamilton, Henry Clay, and Lincoln. Roosevelt marked the end of the sharp animosity towards the British crown which had been left in American public life in the wake of British support for the Confederacy during the Civil War. Roosevelt directed a wave of race hatred against Chinese and other yellow- skinned orientals; against Latin Americans and peoples of Mediterranean origin; against Germans; and against black and brown skinned people in general. Teddy Roosevelt was of course a militant imperialist and empire- builder. The "Roosevelt corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine is no corollary, but rather a total reversal of the original anti- colonialist intent of Monroe and his Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams. Teddy Roosevelt's claim to exercise international police powers over debtor nations launched a new imperialism, this time based in the United States. Teddy Roosevelt was a dedicated Malthusian who did everything he could to abort the economic development of the United States west of the Mississippi. This Malthusian environmentalism lives on in the administration of the "environmental president." In order to enforce his alien policies, Teddy Roosevelt was in the vanguard of the creation of a US domestic police state. He got his start by leading police-state attacks on the New York Tammany Democratic machine as New York City Police Commissioner, and later carried his assault to other constituency groupings, the kind Bush reviles today as special interests. Roosevelt founded the centerpiece of the US domestic police state apparatus, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and made Charles Bonaparte, a relation of the French imperial house, the first FBI director. Roosevelt's program of "trust-busting," (which wiped out industrial forces opposed to the Morgan interests) and his conservationism led to the creation of a whole series of regulatory agencies, which are busily strangling US economic activity today. On a deeper level: if London had not been able to count on the United States as a future ally, it is doubtful that the British government would have encouraged Russia and France to go to war with Austria-Hungary and Germany in 1914. Without the short-term certainty of US intervention on the British side, the Bolshevik revolution would have been far less likely. Theodore Roosevelt's role as the first overtly and extravagantly Anglophile US president after the Civil War thus helped to pave the way for some of the greatest disasters of the twentieth century. Above and beyond all policy and strategic issues, Bush is attracted by the psychological Gestalt of Theodore Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt suffered from a very limited attention span. He was vain, self-centered, unstable and tended towards exhibitionism. The most concise summary of Teddy's pathology can be found in a letter by Sir Cecil Spring-Rice of the British Foreign Office, certainly one of the most important influences on Roosevelt's life; some would call him Teddy's British controller. When another British diplomat, Valentine Chirol, complained about Teddy's wandering focus and intermittent attention span, Spring-Rice replied: If you took an impetuous small boy on to a beach strewn with a great many exciting pebbles, you would not expect him to remain interested for long in one pebble. You must always remember that the President is about six. [fn 3] This restless and distracted inability to concentrate, this incapacity for the prolonged contemplation and examination of issues and problems, is one of the factors that made Teddy Roosevelt the psychological wreck that he was. Teddy could not think; the psychological background noise was far too loud. Instead, he was driven to undertake his legendary hunting exploits of killing vast quantities of birds and animals, his prodigious feats of physical exercise and, later, his hollow martial posturing as a "Rough Rider." The polar opposite to Theodore Roosevelt on all of these points of world outlook and literary expression is Abraham Lincoln. Bush was often paid lip service to Lincoln as a great president, and even organized a lecture in the White House about the contributions of the Civil War president. But there have also been a few unguarded moments in which Bush has revealed his instinctive hatred for Lincoln. In mid-1990, Bush attended a performance at Ford's Theatre, which is still used for dramatic productions and other events in downtown Washington. At the end of the evening Bush was asked by a correspondent if he had enjoyed his evening. Bush remarked that whereas Lincoln had only been able to enjoy the first act of the play he had seen at Ford's he, Bush, had been able to enjoy the entire evening. This quip was reported in the British press. Bush's affinity for Teddy Roosevelt is based most profoundly on the shared cognitive impairment of these two political figures. In the case of Bush, the inability to think is expressed most demonstrably in the incoherence of verbal expression. Thanks in part to Dana Carvey, who has some insight into this side of Bush's character, the "Bushspeak" issue has been on the table at least since 1987-88. But Bush has been spewing out garbled verbiage for a very long time. The following sample was recorded by Elizabeth Drew in February, 1980, during a ride from Worcester, Masschusetts to Boston. Ms. Drew commented that Bush seemed to enjoy campaigning. Bush replied in part: I do. Isn't that awful? I really enjoy it, and I say 'awful' only because I'm just beginning to wonder what the hell's happening to me, you know, but I really do enjoy it. I loved going through that cafeteria, kidding with them and learning stuff and sitting and chatting and trying to be responsive to the person and yet have a concern for what concerns them. I mean it when I say I'm better. I'll be better, more sensitive, stronger, from things like that. And there is the smell of the greasepaint and that other crap; there's some of that. I mean, this is very different today. There was a time nobody'd stand out in even hot weather to see me. I was all alone four months ago, and here people are waiting. And there's a certain forward adrenaline that exists today. Hopefully, there will be more of them. Maybe not: maybe I'll be lousy and they'll go away, but that's part of the fun of it. Part of it is the process itself. It's a good process. [fn 4] The leading feature of this sample is Bush's total lack of rigor; his personal idiom is incapable of expressing causality or precision. Already the subject-object relations are blurred, antecedents are a realm of anything goes, and verbal action has dwindled to insignificance. Underneath the avid and enthusiastic persona is a mind that is petulant, bored, and blase' about everything that does not touch the interests of the ego. The result is an impression of overwhelming, undifferentiated banality. One is reminded of a narrative voice like the following: If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything personal about them. They're quite touchy about anything like that, especially my father. [fn 5] The Holden Caulfield of J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye inhabited the world that also belonged to George Bush, the world of the northeast prep schools of the 1940's. Apart from the obvious parallels between George and Holden, there is the interesting question of whether Bush might have a closer relation to this literary personage. In the course of the errant Holden Caulfield's time in New York City, he takes a girlfriend to a matinee theatre performance; during the intermission the girlfriend, named Sally, spots "some jerk she knew on the other side of the lobby. Some guy in one of those very dark grey flannel suits and one of those checkered vests. Strictly Ivy League. Big deal." Holden recounts the later conversation between Sally and her friend: "You should've seen him when old Sally asked him how he liked the play. He was the kind of a phony that have to give themselves room when they answer somebody's question. He stepped back, and stepped right on the lady's foot behind him. He probably broke every toe in her body. He said the play itself was no masterpiece, but that the Lunts, of course, were absolute angels. Angels. For Chrissake. Angels. That killed me. Then he and Sally started talking about a lot of people they both knew. It was the phoniest conversation you ever heard in your life." "The worst part was, the jerk had one of those very phony, Ivy League voices, one of those very tired, snobby voices. He sounded just like a girl. He didn't hesitate to horn in on my date, the bastard. I even thought for a minute that he was going to get in the goddam cab with us when the show was over, because he walked about two blocks with us, but he said he had to meet a bunch of phonies for cocktails, he said. I could see them all sitting around in some bar, with their goddam checkered vests, criticizing shows and books and women in those tired, snobby voices. They kill me, those guys." Who was Sally's friend? "His name was George something - I don't even remember- and he went to Andover. Big, big deal." Who was the "phony Andover bastard" who so exasperated Holden Caulfield? Can this be a very early cameo appearance of George Herbert Walker Bush? J.D. Salinger is not known for giving interviews, but George Bush, Big Man on the Andover campus, would have been a figure of some note under the clock in the Biltmore during the early 1940's, which seems to be the epoch in which this episode is set. Bush's devotion to racist genetic determinism recalls a slightly earlier figure of the Eastern Liberal Establishment in literature; this is the Amory Blaine of F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise. For the egotist Amory Blaine, whose motto was "I know myself, but that is all," and who called out to an arch- traitor and arch-villain "Good-by, Aaron Burr, you and I knew strange corners of life," was also a believer in the superiority of whites and blondes. As Amory tells one of his college friends: We took the year-books for the last ten years and looked at the pictures of the senior council. I know you don't think much of that august body, but it does represent success here in a general way. Well, I suppose only about thrity-five per cent of every class here are blonds, are really light--yet two-thirds of every senior council are light. We looked at pictures of ten years of them, mind you; that means that out of every fifteen light-haired men in the senior class one is on the senior council, and of the dark-haired men it's only one in fifty. [fn 6] The other figure from F. Scott Fitzgerald who shares traits with Bush is Nick Carraway, the recent Yale graduate who is the narrator of The Great Gatbsy. Nick Carraway was fascinated by Jay Gatbsy and other denizens of the demi-monde of organized crime, recalling George Bush's long personal friendship with Don Aronow and others of the Meyer Lansky milieu in Florida. Other aspects of Bush's outlook and mode of expression can be traced back to Dink Stover at Yale, a series of boy's novels by Owen Johnson which began coming out after the First World War, just after the Harriman brothers, Prescott Bush, and Neil Mallon had graduated. Dink Stover was a preppy from Lawrenceville who talked about democracy and equality during his first three years at Yale. He always helped old ladies and did the right thing. When Tap Day rolled around, Dink Stover was tapped by Skull and Bones. Key elements of Bush's public mask, or persona, correspond to the community-service oriented do-gooder Dink Stover, an early addition to the thousand points of light. Bush's language is the mirror of his personality, and it merits more than cursory examination. The most outstanding quality of Bushspeak is first of all its garbled incoherence and lost syntax. In one of his debates with Dukakis on September 25, 1988, Bush commented on the number of the homeless who are mentally ill: But-- and I-- look, mental-- that was a little overstated-- I'd say about 30 percent. [fn 7] Some may claim that the most dissociated utterances by Bush are not his own responsibility, but result rather from Bush's attempt to regurgitate the contents of verbal briefings and briefing books. This assertion has a specious credibility. In hyper-prepared appearances like the debate with Dukakis, Bush does have a tendency to spout lines that mix up phrases and one-liners that he has drilled. In an answer on defense policy during the same debate with Dukakis, Bush stated: "We are going to make some changes and some tough choices before we go to the deployment on the Midgetman missle, or on the Minuteman, whatever it is. We're going to have to- - the MX. We're going to have to do that." And then he added: "It's Christmas." And then, as the audience laughed, "W ouldn't it be nice to be the iceman so you never make a mistake?" The reference to Christmas was intended to be self- ironic; on September 7, 1988, Bush had announced that it was Pearl Harbor Day; now, on September 25, he was announcing that it was Christmas. But garbled incoherence is so much a staple of Bush's spoken discourse that it cannot be attributed solely to the pressure of his handlers; it is a life-long habit which has become more accentuated during the years of his presidency. In February 1988, Bush told prospective voters in the New Hampshire primary: I have a tendency to avoid on and on and on, eloquent pleas. I don't talk much, but I believe, maybe not articulate much, but I feel. [fn 8] Was Bush worried about not being an exciting candidate? "Charisma short? Needing a charisma transplant? Not much," was his rejoinder. A high school student of Knoxville, Tennessee wanted to know if his president would seek ideas from foreign countries to improve education. Bush's riposte: Well, I'm going to kick that one right into the end zone of the Secretary of Education. But, yes, we have all-- he travels a good deal, goes abroad. We have a lot of people in the department that does that. We're having an international-- this is not as much education as dealing with the environment--a big international conference coming up. And we get it all the time--exchanges of ideas. But I think we've got-- we set out there-- and I want to give credit to your Governor McWherter and to your former Governor Lamar Alexander-- we've gotten great ideas for a national goals program from--in this country -- from the governors who were responding to, maybe, the principal of your high school, for heaven's sake. [fn 9] In a speech to graduating college seniors, Bush described the visit of the new Czechoslovak President, Vaclav Havel, to the White House in early 1990: And the look on his face, as the man who was in jail an dying, or living -- whatever-- for freedom, stood out there, hoping against hope for freedom. [fn 10] Bush once admitted that he had difficulty keeping the most elementary sense of direction in his mental life; he told a group of school children, "I read so much sometimes I start to read backwards, which is not very good." [fn 11] Bush is a bureaucrat and administrator at heart, with all the sinister overtones these have rightly acquired during the twentieth century. His discourse is highly bureaucratic, and is famous for being so. Bush's obsessions with "things", as in the notorious "vision thing," reflects the essence of Aristotelian bureaucratic cataloguing. We saw the "adversary thing" back in 1976; since then we have seen the "Super Tuesday thing," "the vice presidential thing," and a nostalgic glance at "this drilling thing," in reference to Bush's "experience in offshore drilling." [fn 12] When Bush talked by telephone with the astronauts of the space shuttle Atlantis, he asked, "How was the actual deployment thing?" Sometimes this can even occur in the plural, as in this referenc e to his dog Millie's puppies: "Kids just love those little fuzzy things." Bush's language is also peppered with the acronyms of the inside-the-beltway Washington functionary. "My allied colleagues and I should agree to take up these ideas at the C.S.C.E. summit this fall, to be held around the signing of the C.F.E. treaty," Bush said on one occasion. Those who do not know what GATT, SPRs, G-7, Start, Cocom, OTS, and Chapter VII mean are going to have a hard time following Bushspeak. [fn 13] And like all bureaucrats, Bush loves the passive voice. His stock reply on Iran- contra was, "Mistakes were made." Who made them? Bush's answer, which he alleges is borrowed from Yogi Berra, was "Don't make the wrong mistakes." Very often Bush's pronouncements are designed for self-defense against his detractors. In the spring of 1988, Bush was asked his reaction to Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury comic strip, and to the political satire of Dana Carvey of Saturday Night Live. Bush answered: I used to get tense about that. My mother still does. She's 87. She doesn't like it when people say untrue and ugly things about her little boy. Having said that, it doesn't bother me any more. You know why, because we took a tremendous pounding, not just from elitists like Doonesbury, coming out of the elite of the elite, but untrue allegations, and you know I don't worry about it anymore, because the American people don't believe all this stuff. So I'm saying, why should I be all uptight? [fn 14] Although he likes to suggests that it is his opponents who are the real elitist, sometimes Bush has to defend his own patrician social background against criticism. When Bush was campaigning in New Jersey before the 1988 primary, he was asked if the patrician governor of that state, Tom Kean, had a background so similar to Bush's that he could not be considered as Bush's vice presidential running mate. Bush's reply: Did they ask Tom Kean when he was a great success in business, a great success in government, did they ask where he went to school or what his background was? Did they say, 'Tom, you can't be a very good governor because you weren't born in a log cabin in the middle of Newark'? No, they didn't ask that.... So I don't worry about fitting into some kind of mold. It's what you feel, what you believe, what kind of experience you've had." [fn 15] Many times the purpose of Bush's remarks is to evade questions. He often refused to talk about his role in Iran-contra: "I forgot to tell you, I don't talk about what I told the president," was a favorite line. Who would be his running mate? "I forgot to tell you, I'm not in the speculation business." Would he purge the Reaganites? "I forgot to tell you, we're going to have wholesale change." [fn 16] Bush has called himself "a restrained kind of guy." He has often denied having "a rancor in there" against his opposition, but his rage states have become increasingly difficult to control over the years. He was unable to control his temper when defending his kow-tow to Deng Xiao-ping during 1989; after a ranting defense of his China policy he thanked the press for their questions, saying: "So, I'm glad you asked it because then I vented a spleen here." [fn 17] Bush's rage episodes have often been associated with public criticism. Commenting once again on the Doonesbury comic strip, Bush once confessed: "Four years ago I'd go ballistic when I read some of this stuff. But hey, let him do his thing, and I'll do mine." "Ballistic" for Bush refers to a rage fit whi ch might cause him to chew on the White House carpets; this is a not infrequent event. For lesser tantrums Bush has coined another expression, "semi-ballistic," as in an offhand remark during the 1988 campaign about his feelings when given speech drafts which he finds unsuitable: "Everybody on this airplane will have seen me semi-ballistic when people hand me things that I'm simply not going to say." Another feeling state which, judging from the evidence of his statements, is meaningful for Bush is the state of being "frantic." During the 1988 campaign, Bush was asked about his tendency to assail Dukakis. Bush replied" I don't feel frantic. I don't feel under any time constraints. There is a little bit of cholesterol rise, the frustration level going up. So I'm getting a little bit more combative. [fn 18] During 1989, Bush still faced grilling about Iran-contra from a reporter. "You're burning up time. The meter is running through the sand on you, and I am now filibustering," taunted Bush. [fn 19] Bush's pattern of uncontrollable rage states became worse during 1990, in the interwar period between Panama and Iraq. During February 1990, Bush came under fire for duplicity, lying to the press, and excessive secret diplomacy. After a night's sleep on Air Force One on the way to an anti-drug summit in Colombia, Bush came out of his quarters to confront the travelling press corps in a way that the Washington Post correspondent found "both testy and teasing." Bush, visibly furious, announced "a whole new relationship" with reporters. "From now on it's gonna be a little different. I think we have too many press conferences," ranted Bush. "It's not good. It's overexposure to the thing." Had he not slept well?, asked one reporter. Bush replied, I can't go into the details of that. Because someone will think it's too much sleep, someone will think it's too little. I'll give you a little insight into that. I had a very good night's sleep. And I've never-- if I felt better it'd be a frame-up. There's something you can use. Bush was incensed because he had denied that there was about to be a four-power conference on the future of Germany, and such a conference was announced the next day. Bush had been misleading about his plans for the Malta summit with Gorbachov, and he had kept secret the mission of Scowcroft and Eagleburger to Beijing on July 4, 1989. Various press accounts had noted these discrepancies, and Bush was now having a fit. Would he be signing a joint communique at the drug summit with Colombia, Peru and Bolivia? I hate to be secretive, say nothing of deceptive. But I'm not going to tell you that. Would he discuss possible US military interdiction of drug trafficking? I'm not going to discuss what I'm gonna bring up. Would the drug summit bring any surprise proposals? I'm not gonna discuss whether there are any surprises or not. This is a new thing. A new approach. Even if I don't discuss it. I'm not going to discuss it. Would the Colombian government now abandon its policy of extraditing drug traffickers? Bush: I have no comment whatsoever on that. Q: Did you know about it? Bush: I have no comments on whether I knew about it. Q: Is it true? Bush: I can't comment on whether it's true or not. Q: Did we turn you into this? Bush: Yes. When I told you...that I didn't think there would be a deal [on the four-power conference on Germany], and then they shortly made a deal, and I'm hit for decieving you. So from now on it's going to be a little different. Would he schedule a summit with Gorbachov for June, 1990? Bush again refused to answer, "Because I'm not gonna be burned for holding out or doing something deceptive." Later the same afternoon, Marlin Fitzwater, the top White House spin doctor, attempted to interpret what had been an infantile fit of rage by assuring the reporters: "He was just kidding. He was having fun." [fn 20] In retrospect, it is also clear that Bush's thyroid was also on the warpath. Later the same spring, Bush went semi-ballistic when reporters declined to join him for jogging at 7:15 AM in Columbia, South Carolina. The White House reporters all got a wake-up call at 7 AM calling on them to join Bush for jogging in 15 minutes; usually the reporters watch Bush from the sidelines, but this time he was magnanimously inviting them to come running with him. There were no volunteers. Bush then bullied Rita Beamish of Associated Press into running with him, 13 laps around a football field for a total of 25 minutes. But even after that exertion, Bush was still full of fury. He proceeded to launch a diatribe at the press corps: The rest of you lazy guys, get out there and run. A fit America is a fine America. A fit America is a strong America. A fit America should include photo dogs [Bushspeak for photographers] as well as print reporters who slovenly sit back in the grandstands while some of us are out running. Bush then attacked the "boom men," who hold microphones on long poles to pick up Bush's remarks. Not long before, a boom man had accidentally dropped a microphone on a table in the Oval Office, and Bush had apoplectically complained of ruined antiques; had it been the Theodore Roosevelt desk? Bush railed that if the boom men exercised more, they would have more "strength in the forearms to keep these microphones up in the air." One reporter responded to the tirade: "I do not get paid to play with the president when he feels like playing." [fn 21] When on vacation, Bush has always maintained a frenetic, hyperkinetic pace. After winning the 1988 election, Bush repaired to Delray Beach, Florida, to cavort with his plutocrat friend William Stamps Farrish III. Despite the exhausting rigors of the campaign, Bush "spent the bulk of his day exercising and resting: a quarter-mile swim, a 20-minute run, and a nap." He came back from a two-mile run in an "upbeat, almost giddy mood." [fn 22] Bush's hyperkinetic antics at Kennebunkport during September, 1989 were described as follows by a first-hand observer: It was just an average day on President Bush's vacation. Hungering to catch a bluefish, he packed up his speedboat Fidelity and headed out to sea. But when he remembered that he had forgotten First Lady Barbara Bush, he turned the boat around and accidentally ran over a board, which broke a propeller. Undeterred by his disabled boat, the president took his party to the horseshoe pit, where they tossed several games for about 45 minutes as Mr. Bush exclaimed, "Mr. Smooth does it again" with each ringer. But soon that got old, and it was time to head to the golf course for 18 holes. This is President Bush, a man of nearly manic movement. All during his vacation, the last thing he did was relax. He's up at the crack of dawn for jogging, out on the tennis courts, teeing off for golf, pitching horseshoes, fishing, swimming, entertaining friends. Bush, in sum, "can't sit still"; he even accepted a dare from his grandchildren and dove off a stone pier into the Atlantic Ocean, which is kept cold along the Maine coast by the frigid Labrador current. [fn 23] George Herbert Walker had reformed the rules of golf, eliminating the stymie; George Bush transformed the game into a manic exercise called "speed golf," whose object is to complete 18 holes in the briefest possible interval of time. According to one journalist who attempted to match Bush's record of 1 hour 37 minutes for a threesome, as compared with almost four hours for leisurely golfers. Speed golf may not be for everyone, but it is President Bush's game, however. He calls it cart polo. Bush has taken a leisurely game and turned it into what one reporter called a forced march-- on wheels. "He barely gets out of the cart, whacks it, and he's gone," says Spike Heminway, Bush's longtime friend and frequent playing partner. Others have dubbed it aerobic golf, or golf in the fast lane. "Do you know who the winner is in speed golf?" a Portland, Maine doctor asked me. "The first one in the hole." [fn 24] During the summer of 1989, "Bush revealed himself to be a playful yet relentless exhibitionist," wrote another commentator. "He was forever restless and rarely alone." Out on the golf course, he called for silence: "All right, the crowd is hushed. They sense that Mr. Smooth is back." Later, when it came time to play tennis, Bush ordered a press aide to round up the photo dogs and reporters to "come see what Mr. Smooth is like on the courts." [fn 25] For Newsweek, Bush's routine was a "pentathlon." Bush's desire for frenetic movement, seeking in space what has been lost in time, carries over into his notorious penchant for foreign travel. By July, 1991, he had logged 339,257 miles on Air Force One, and visited 32 countries, having surpassed in less than 30 months the previous record set by Nixon between 1969 and 1974. [fn 26] Bush has a history of psychosomatic illness. During the 1950's, when he was in his early thirties, he had been, according to his own account, a "chronic worrier." One morning during a "hectic business trip to London" Bush had fainted in his hotel room, and was unable to get to his feet. A hotel doctor thought he had food poisoning. Bush says he later sought treatment from Dr. Lillo Crain at the Texas Medical Center. Dr. Crain told Bush that he had a bleeding ulcer. "George, you're a classic ulcer type," Bush says he was told by Dr. Crain. "A young businessman with only one speed, all-out. You try to do too much and you worry too much." Bush says he expressed doubt there was any chance he could change his ways. The doctor replied, "There'd better be, or you won't be around in ten years, maybe five." Dr. Crain added: "If you want to keep this from happening again, it's up to you." [fn 27] Bush claims he worked at "channeling my energies", and "never suffered a relapse." After Bush's May 10, 1989 White House physical examination, a cyst was found on the third finger of Bush's right hand; this was surgically removed in October, 1989, and pronounced benign. This was allegedly Bush's only problem. On April 12, 1990, White House physician Dr. Burton Lee announced that Bush "is in truly excellent health." "He continues to keep extremely fit through vigorous physical activity." Bush was diagnosed with "early glaucoma" in his left eye, a condition that was treated with Betagen eye drops. X-rays of Bush's hips and back confirmed the presence of a "mild degenerative osteoarthritis," which allegedly had been discovered by previous examinations. [fn 2] On March 27, 1991, Bush was given another routine physical, and the White House doctors (and spin doctors) announced once again that their charge was in "excellent health." On May 4, 1991, Bush delivered an address at the commencement exercises of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. This campus had been the site of the first anti-war teach in of the Vietnam epoch, in 1965, and the Ann Arbor campus had been the scene of significant anti-war activity during Bush's Gulf adventure. Today Bar was also present. His new speech writer Tony Snow, the former editorial page editor of the Moonie Washington Times had contributed to a speech attacking the campus inquisition called "political correctness." The scene was the cavernous Michigan Stadium south of the main campus, a larger version of the Circus Maximus in Rome. Bush was looking for a wedge issue for the 1992 campaign, and the campus dictators of the politically correct were a big target. There were hecklers with signs denouncing Bush, so he launched into his text with vigor: Although the movement arises from the laudable desire to sweep away the debris of racism and sexism and hatred, it replaces old prejudice with new ones. It declares certain topics off-limits, certain expressions off-limits, even certain gestures off- limits...In their own Orwellian way, crusades that demand correct behavior crush diversity in the name of diversity. At this point the hecklers came to life with loud chants of "Bush lies." Since the beginning of the Gulf crisis, Bush had been confronted by hostile demonstrators. We know from his 1965 debate with Ronnie Dugger how much he was upset by such "extremists." The chants kept going as the infuriated Bush struggled to be heard. The power to create also rests on other freedoms, especially the freedom -- and I think about that right now -- to speak one's mind. I had this written into the speech, and I didn't even know if these guys were going to be here. The demonstrators kept up the chorus of "Bush lies." Bush's temperature was rising from semi-ballistic to ballistic. He told the students to ...fight back against the boring politics of division and derision. Let's trust our friends and colleagues to respond to reason....And I remind myself a lot of this: We must conquer the temptation to assign bad motives to people who disagree with us. [fn 29] After this speech, Bush flew to Andrews Air Force base and thence by helicopter to Camp David. During this period, Bush's White House chief of staff, John Sununu, had become the target of public criticism because of his frequent use of military aircraft for weekend vacations and skiing trips. Boy Gray had come forward as the enforcer of White House travel regulations against Sununu, whose motto was reportedly "fly free or die." There were also moves afoot to re-open the 1980 October surprise investigation, always a point of immense vulnerability for Bush. He had been forced to deny once again on May 3 that he had engaged in secret dealings with the Khomeini regime to delay the release of the US hostages in Teheran. Slightly after 3:30 PM, Bush gathered his retinue of Secret Service agents and announced that it was time to go jogging. After about 30 minutes, he began complaining of fatigue and shortness of breath. He then proceeded to the Camp David infirmary, where Michael Nash, one of his resident team of doctors, determined that Bush was experiencing atrial fibrillation, an irregularity of the heartbeat. Nash recommended that Bush go to Bethesda Medical Center for treatment. Bush arrived at Bethesda at 6 PM. The news that Bush had entered the hospital at Bethesda was flashed by wire services around the planet. Bush was exhibiting a fast, irregular heart rhythm. The heart was working less efficiently, producing a tendency for shortness of breath, light- headedness, and even fainting. Sometimes atrial fibrillation is associated with a heart attack, or with damage to a heart valve. The first step in Bush's treatment was the attempt to slow the heart rate and to restore the normal rhythm. After an hour of tests, doctors gave Bush digoxin, a drug used to restore the usual heart rhythm. When the digoxin proved unable to do the job alone, Bush's physicians began to administer another heart medication, procainamide. Though doctors claimed that Bush showed "some indications of a positive response" to this therapy, Bush's heart irregularity was resistant to the medicines and persisted through Sunday, May 5. Doctors also began to administer an anticoagultant drug, Coumadin, in addition to aspirin. Bush was thus being kept going with four different medications. At this point, Bush's medical team was forced to contemplate resorting to electrocardioversion, a procedure in which an electric shock is administered to the heart, momentarily stopping the heart and resetting its rhythm. This prospect was enough to create a crisis of the entire regime, since electrocardioversion would have required Bush to undergo general anesthesia, which in turn would have mandated the transfer of presidential powers to Vice President Dan Quayle. Back in 1985, we have seen that Bush was the beneficiary of such a transfer when Reagan underwent surgery for colon cancer. The transfer would have been accomplished under Section III of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, which states that Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President. The specter of Acting President Dan Quayle brought forth a wave of public expressions of consternation and dismay. According to a Washington Post-ABC public opinion poll published May 7, 57% of those responding said that in their opinion Quayle was not qualified to take over as Acting President. In the night between Sunday May 5 and Monday May 6, Bush was still experiencing sporadic episodes of an irregular heartbeat. But on the morning of Monday, May 6 his doctors suddenly pronounced him fit to return to the Oval Office, where he was seated at his desk by 9:30 AM, and resumed what was described as his normal work schedule. The doctors conceded only that they had asked Bush to curtail his usual frenetic schedule of recreational sports. Bush returned to work wired with a portable heart monitor. This was a device about the size of a telephone pager, with white wires leading to patches on his chest which measured the rate of his heartbeat. Bush stated that he was "Back to normal and the same old me." He declined to show off his heart monitor with the quip "Do you think I'm Lyndon Johnson?" LBJ had pulled up his shirt to show reporters a scar on his stomach after a gall bladder operation. [fn 30] On May 7, Bush's chief attending physician, Dr. Burton Lee, gave a briefing at Bethesda in which he disclosed that Bush's bout with atrial fibrillation had been caused by an overactive thyroid gland. Lee assured the press that the problem had been an overactive thryoid secreting too much of the hormore thyroxin, which helps to regulate the body's metabolic rate. This hormone goes into the circulatory system, and thus can disturb the proper functioning of the heart. Lower the rate of production of thyroid hormone, and everything would return to normal, was the message. Lee said that Bush would undergo a thyroid scan and other tests to help determine the appropriate treatment. Contradicting earlier statements by Fitzwater that there had been no recent danger signals regarding Bush's health, Lee now revealed that Bush had experienced a small weight loss and episodes of unusual fatigue during jogging over the previous few weeks. The weight loss had been of eight or nine pounds during the month before Bush was hospitalized. Bush had been tired enough to complain, "Gee whiz, I must be getting old," on earlier joggings runs. [fn 31] Some of Bush's symptoms appear to have emerged in February, during the time of the Iraq war. Lee claimed that Bush had never undergone tests of his thyroid functions because he had shown no symptoms of thyroid disturbance-- a patent absurdity. According to Burton Lee, the first indication of a thyroid disturbance came on Monday morning, when a blood test showed that the level of thyroid hormone in Bush's blood was above normal. These results were then confirmed with repeated blood tests. The official White House line was that this was good news, since thyroid disorders were easily treated. Fitzwater recounted that "The President was overjoyed. It means the problem was not a problem with his heart and that it is virtually 100 percent treatable." Burton Lee chimed in with his opinion that biochemical hyperthyroidism is "easily treatable." On May 9, Bush's doctors announced that he was suffering from what they chose to call Graves' disease, a condition in which the thyroid gland becomes enlarged and produces excessive levels of hormone in response to "false messages" from other parts of the body about how much of the hormone is needed. Graves' disease is a disorder of the immune system in which the body produces an antibody which "mimics" the hormone that usually tells the thyroid how much thyroxin to produce. One decisive test was said to have involved Bush's swallowing of a small dose of radioactive iodine, followed by observation with a device resembling a geiger counter to obtain an image of the thyroid. This thyroid scan revealed a gland that was enlarged, and absorbing iodine at faster than the normal rate. During this press conference, Bush's medical team also conceded that Bush had experienced a renewed bout of atrial fibrillation in the form of a "rather brief episode" during the night of Tuesday, May 8. During this press conference, Burton Lee once again repeated the story that Bush's thyroid had never been tested during his previous annual or other checkups. He offered the estimate that Bush's thyroid condition had developed after his last medical checkup, which had been conducted on March 27, 1991. According to Dr. Kenneth Burman,a thyroid specialist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center who had been assigned to Bush's case, the issue of whether thyroid tests should be a part of routine physical examination was controversial. Burman added that his personal opinion was that such tests were not cost-effective! Press reports reflected surprise on the part of outside experts about this alleged neglect of thyroid testing. Also joining in this press conference was Dr. Bruce K. Lloyd, the chief of cardiology at Bethesda Medical Center. Bush's doctors announced that he had ingested a dose of radioactive iodine on the morning of May 9. Bush drank this iodine at Bethesda. One thyroid expert, Dr. Bruce D. Weintraub of the National Institutes of Health, told the Washington Post that as a result of this thyroid cocktail, which was designed to destroy a large part of Bush's thyroid, the public might henceforth see "a slower and less frenetic George Bush." [fn 32] As a result of the radioactive cocktail, Bush was "mildly radioactive" for a few days, and was told to refrain from hugging his grandchildren for their protection. Some experts called attention to the allegedly bizarre anomaly that Barbara Bush had been diagnosed as suffering from Graves' disease in January, 1990, in the immediate wake of the Panama crisis. One of the antibodies associated with Graves' disease triggers abnormal deposits of fat behind the eyes, leading to the bulging eyes that are associated in the popular mind with hyperthyroid disorders. For some time after she was diagnosed, Mrs. Bush suffered from disturbances in her vision. In addition, during the summer of 1990, the family dog Millie, a springer spaniel, was found to have contracted lupus, another autoimmune disease. Millie was treated with the steroid drug prednisone, and apparently recovered. Finally, it turned out that Bush's son Marvin, a resident of Alexandria, Virginia, was also afflicted by an autoimmune disorder, this time regional enteritis. --[cont]-- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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