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About that Drinking Story that's Making the Rounds

On a blog like this one it is incumbent on us to comment, it seems to me, on the National Enquirer story that George W. Bush has fallen off the wagon:

Family sources have told how the 59-year-old president was caught by First Lady Laura downing a shot of booze at their family ranch in Crawford, Texas, when he learned of the hurricane disaster. His worried wife yelled at him: "Stop, George."

The story quotes some anonymous sources (naturally) and the psychiatrist/professor Justin Frank, who last year wrote a psychobio of Bush (see the article by him published by HNN.) Frank says he believes Bush has resumed drinking.

Over at Cliopatria Jonathan Dresner bravely deconstructs the story. He reaches the conclusion that it won't matter to Bush's supporters if Bush has started drinking and probably shouldn't matter to Bush's critics (he was bad before he drank; will drinking make him worse?).

I disagree. I think that in this case it can safely be argued that if President Bush actually has started drinking we had all better pray for his swift recovery. Presidents have to be clear-headed 24 hours a day. Often they have to act before all the facts are in. Usually, advice from aides requires choices to be made. Should a president suddenly be unable to think quickly or decisively bad decisions will almost certainly result--either because he makes a bad decision or his aides decline to bring a matter to him in a timely manner for him to make a decision. Anthony Summers, whether his account of Richard Nixon was sexed-up or not, demonstrates persuasively the risks of a president who indulges. One day Nixon and Kissinger were talking on the phone. A Kissinger aide, David Young, listening in, heard a distinctly drunk Nixon tell Kissinger, referring to North Vietnam, 'Henry, we've got to nuke them."

Dresner asks if we have had alcoholic presidents. The answer is we have had, in addition to Nixon if Nixon indeed abused alcohol, only one, as far as is known: Franklin Pierce, who was incompetent, drunk or sober, after his child died in a spectacular railroad crash just weeks before Pierce took office. But many presidents were directly familiar with the problems of alcoholism. John Adams had an alcoholic son, Charles, who died just before he left office. TR's brother Eliot was an alcoholic who died in disgrace. Teddy Kennedy was an alcoholic. Ronald Reagan once found his father dead drunk in their front yard.

Oddly, we may have as much to fear from a sober Bush as a drunk Bush if Katherine van Wormer's analysis, published at HNN two years ago, is correct. A Professor of Social Work at the University of Northern Iowa, she contends that Bush suffers from all the classic symptoms of the dry drunk:

Exaggerated self-importance and pomposity
Grandiose behavior
A rigid, judgmental outlook
Impatience
Childish behavior
Irresponsible behavior
Irrational rationalization
Projection Overreaction

Sure sounds like George W. Bush, doesn't it?

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Posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2005 at 3:11 PM | Comments (27) | Return

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