Found this over at SB.com. It's interesting, but I'm wondering who calls bullshit and who sees it as somewhat true.By Kevin Cassell
Although he is meticulously garbed and groomed with each public appearance carefully staged and TelePrompTed, President George W. Bush's staff cannot conceal his obvious inability to engage issues meaningfully, articulate them cogently, arrive at conclusions in a logical manner, and respond to specific questions with specific answers. Not only are his mental and verbal blunders in stark contrast to his intelligent and well-spoken predecessor, but so is the state of the nation under his presidency: unprecedented federal deficits, stark spikes in unemployment, unregulated corporate avarice, a budget-crunched education system, expensive (and increasingly unpopular) military engagements overseas, and a generally bleak--some would say apocalyptic--assessment regarding "the direction" the country is moving in with him allegedly at the helm.
President Bush's unscripted public remarks, strained by awkward silences in which he mutters "um" and searches for words that are often unsuitable or simply wrong, have garnered a lot of attention from opponents who have sold books packed with "bushisms" on the marketable assumption that the President of the United States, the Leader of the Free World, is stupid. But is he? I submit that perhaps he is not so much stupid as he is sick--that his diminished acumen is the result of dementia associated with the onset of Alzheimer's Disease. We know for a fact that in 1980, when Ronald Reagan took the oath of office, he was on the verge of entering the early stage of the affliction which would later utterly debilitate him. It has happened before--same political party with many of the same players--and it could very well be happening again.
I challenge those who call President Bush "stupid" to go back and view footage of his campaign against Ann Richards for the governance of Texas. Bush in those days was up to par and alert, possessed knowledge of state issues that he regularly and effectively drew upon, and handled himself with considerable aplomb in their debates. While never a John F. Kennedy or even a Richard M. Nixon, Bush's political style was, quite frankly, very much opposite his style--if you can call it that--today. There has been a noticeable degeneration in Bush's public performance.
Prominent symptoms of Alzheimer's the President exhibits with alarming frequency include problems with language, memory loss, and poor or decreased judgment. Alzheimer's Disease International tells us that "a person with dementia often forgets simple words or substitutes unusual words, making speech . . . hard to understand." No other president in recent history so faithfully mirrors this specific symptom as does President Bush: "I want to remind you all," he said recently, "that in order to fight and win the war, it requires an expenditure of money that is commiserate with keeping a promise to our troops to make sure that they're well-paid, well-trained, well-equipped." Despite the garbled syntax, we can pretty much figure out that he had the adjective commensurate in mind (yet another possibility: compensate). This linguistic slip, one of legion the President makes on a regular basis, illustrates the kind of unusual word substitution associated with Alzheimer's.
Commensurate is a difficult word and, hey, we all struggle with those every now and then. But President Bush stumbles when trying to use simple ones too. On December 18, 2002, Bush told some Washington reporters: "I think the American people--I hope the American--I don't think, let me--I hope the American people trust me." Here it appears Bush forgot the meaning of "think," then the meaning of "hope," then the meaning of both words before finally settling on the second. "Declining memory, especially short-term memory," according to ADI, "is the most common early symptom of dementia."
In addition, long-term memory loss--actually more a symptom of mid-stage Alzheimer's--sometimes afflicts President Bush. Speaking in Dakar, Senegal, on July 8, 2003, President Bush stated: "It's very interesting when you think about it, the slaves who left here to go to America, because of their steadfast and their religion and their belief in freedom, helped change America." This Yale and Harvard educated president obviously knew that African slaves did not "leave" Africa to "go" and "help change America," but apparently forgot the real reason that brought them here. He was comparing them to European immigrants who flocked to American shores around the turn of the twentieth century, something his memory was able to kick up. But when it came to the history of African-American slavery, which he no doubt learned about in Middle School and came back to again and again throughout his secondary and post-secondary education, his mind drew a blank.
Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill, both former members of the current Bush Administration, have written books in which Bush is depicted as having poor or decreased judgment, yet another symptom of Alzheimer's. While Clarke presents the president as oddly obsessed with Iraq to the point of ignoring al Qaida, O'Neill paints the picture of a poker-faced, basically unintelligent puppet of the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, and other forces--in short, someone for whom judgments are made by others. The precariousness of Bush's own judgments, though, are best represented by Bush himself, who, on "Meet the Press" (February 8, 2004), stated: "In my judgment, when the United States says there will be serious consequences, and if there isn't serious consequences, it creates adverse consequences."
Given that President Reagan completed two terms in office while experiencing regular bouts of Alzheimer's-related dementia, it's possible that Bush--providing his supporters continue to shrug their shoulders at his embarrassing behavior--can make it through to 2008. But beware: some evidence suggests that Bush is actually approaching the later phase of this disease.
In January, 2002, while watching a Baltimore-Miami NFL playoff, President Bush lost consciousness, fell to the floor ("I hit the deck," he said), cut his face on his glasses, bruised his lower lip, and procured a large scrape and bruise on his left cheekbone after choking on a pretzel. Joking about the incident a few days later in East Moline, Illinois, Bush said: "If my mother is listening, Mother, I should have listened to you: Always chew your pretzels before you swallow." According to the American Health Assistance Foundation: "During the final stage [of Alzheimer's], patients lose the ability to chew and swallow."
My mother deals with such sufferers daily and has to read up on this stuff, so I'm going to put this to her and see what I get. She doesn't like Bush, but I doubt she'd it off to Alzheimer's etc. without reason.
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