Another story about Bush cracking up.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7606.shtml

"The war erupted into full-blown shout fests at Camp David this past weekend where decorum broke down in staff meetings and longtime aides threatened to quit unless Rove goes. Insiders say Chief of Staff Andrew Card now leads the anti-Rove legions and has told Bush that he wants out of the high-pressure job.

White House staff members say the White House is “like a wartime bunker” where shell-shocked aides hide from those who disagree with their actions and office pools speculate on how long certain senior aides will last.

Bush, whose obscenity-laced temper tantrums increase with each new setback and scandal, abruptly ended one Camp David meeting by telling everyone in the room to “go fuck yourselves” before he stalked out of the room.

Senior aides describe Bush as increasingly “edgy” or “nervous” or “unfocused.” They say the President goes from apparent coherent thought one moment to aimless rambles about political enemies and those who are “out to get me.”

----

If true, only Rove and Cheney are in charge.

[mattclearing]

1. Capitol Hill Blue again?

Why are they the only people with this story?

:shrug:

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. So?

Why should we debunk them?

[mattclearing]

12. Not debunking them, but it's strange that they are the only people

reporting it. This is something like their third story on it...you'd think there'd be others doing it.

[DoYouEverWonder]

14. Captial Hill Blue specializes

in inside the beltway gossip. They just don't have much competition. Especially since the M$M only reports what Rove allows them to report.

[WilliamPitt]

19. Is that what it is...?

...

[nadinbrzezinski]

69. They even say such in their Home Page Will

now what I find interesting is that soem of the gossip has been ahem confirmed by Newsweek and other MSM, but people still give CHB a what it is just CHB

[nadinbrzezinski]

65. Ahem Newsweek did

as well as Time

Just not as intensely

Look they have the contacts ok...

[tuvor]

7. To put it another way...

Why does it seem to be their ONLY story?

They've been doing variations on this story since before the last election.

[Richard Steele]

25. Exactly. Knew it was CapitolHillBlue from "B*sh Cracking Up" in the Title.

Always long on drama, with ZERO verifiable specifics.

CapitolHillBlue is not even real GOSSIP;
it's just semi-educated GUESSWORK presented as news.

[King Coal]

2. That rag is bullshit.

[Canuckistanian]

10. Is it?

I'm astounded by the stories that he digs up, but how can someone get access to such info? We all know that loyalty and secrecy trump just about anything in the WH.

But somehow, the stories ring true. They may be exaggerations, but I believe the basic stories are somehow credible.

[savemefromdumbya]

26. I believe

Bush is getting even more arrogant than before basically pretending all this is not happening? I think he is convinced he'll ride the storm.

[Ganja Ninja]

31. It maybe BS or just made up but they probably aren't far wrong.

It just sounds so in character for Bush.

[Stephanie]

44. They have been right before >

I choose to believe they are correct.

An increasing number of mainstream media outlets, including Newsweek, The Washington Post and the New York Daily News recently confirmed our earlier reports about Bush’s temper tantrums.

“Bush usually reserves his celebrated temper for senior aides because he knows they can take it,” the Daily News reported. “Lately, however, some junior staffers also have faced the boss’s wrath.”

“This is not some manager at McDonald’s chewing out the help," a source with close ties to the White House told the paper. “This is the president of the United States, and it’s not a pleasant sight.”

[JuniperLea]

4. "out to get me"

Paranoid freakazoid!

I posted here a week or so ago about a dream I had where Chimpy had to be forcibly removed from the WH when his regime ended... in a straight jacket, being led out by nice young men in their clean white coats.

I've never, ever wished something so gruesome upon anyone in my life! But I wholeheartedly wish this would happen!

[madokie]

16. Yes, this HATRED I feel for * is so strong

and I don't like the feeling. Just go away mr *

[TallahasseeGrannie]

71. Paranoid freakazoid?

Well, I'll buy the freakazoid. But is he paranoid if it is TRUE? Because let's be truthful, half the country IS out to get him!

It's about time he noticed!

[JuniperLea]

73. I stand corrected!

You are absolutely right!

[Loge23]

5. highly skeptical report

These guys have been reporting the same story for years - they just change the venue for timeliness.

It may indeed be true, but there's no leak from his inner sanctum.

[leveymg]

6. Sounds like it was cribbed directly from "The Last Days"

Nobody's really in charge. That's why America is so royally screwed.

[nodehopper]

28. what's "the last days"??

[leveymg]

32. Meant, The Final Days, Woodward & Bernstein

A recounting of the concluding months of the Nixon presidency. Largely reconstructed White House conversations from the Watergate tapes.

Lots of drunken shouting and swearing by Dick Nixon as he disintegrates into booze and bathos.

[NinetySix]

54. I thought you meant the film starring Alec Guinness:

[Rosco T.]

59. That is a picture BEGGING for a photoshop artist to work on!!

p-p-p-p=plewase!!!

[leveymg]

60. Maybe I had that in the back of my mind. Great film.

Appropriate, as well. Everything I said above applies, except the Germans had champagne orgies in the bunker, while Nixon and his henchmen just bathed together in their avarice and self-pity.:evilgrin:

[liberal N proud]

8. We could only hope this is how bad it is. It would hasten the demise

of the bu$h cabal.

[lonestarnot]

9. the leakers... with top secret security clearance. comforting.

[begin_within]

11. Pass the popcorn please.

[hopeisaplace]

67. and some say, worry about a female

president with her finger on the button during "that time of the month" :sarcasm:

* seems to be in constant cramping mode.

[Loonman]

13. Nixon

Redux. Like when Nixon, towards the end, would wander around drunk in the WH late at night, talking to the portraits.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

39. but those stories were confirmed, if I recall.

The BBC some time ago, had a story about his temper showing, as did the Guardian. Of US press was silent - probably too busy about Aruba.

[napi21]

15. I realize this is CHB again, but I can believe there's at least some truth

to it. Many people are aware of Shrub''s temper and his use of opcenities during shouting matches. All the people surrounding him have big egos, and life is not fun when a scandal bomb goes off every other day. With all the investigations going on right now, all of which affect the WH, either directly or indirectly, these guys are very stressed I'm sure.

[Bridget Burke]

20. Are they repeating the story (with variations) because they like to lie?

Or because it is true?

When he was running for Governor of my state, I saw him as a half-bright fratboy type. But he was able to speak in public with a bit of confidence. His demeanor has noticeably degenerated since then.

And we know the high security at his every appearance has more to do with his fragile mental state than protecting him from violence.

[Terran]

27. Well, that's the problem here.

They pose as news and yet there's no way to know if it's for real or a complete fabrication, or something in between. And that makes inherently worthless as a source of information. It may as well be a complete fantasy for all the effect that it has on anything. It's every Dem's dream and every republican's nightmare, but I'd rather know what the reality is than read about dreams and nightmares.

[nadinbrzezinski]

68. Newsweek and Time ran stories recently

so did the NY Daily News

By the way, you realize this guy has contacts up and down the beltway going back to the Reagan Days when he was a Hill Staffer?

I'd say the Stenography corp has been timid to run any of these stories

[Wickerman]

23. couldn't happen to a nicer group of guys

Yep, CHB reports this same story, sans a few particulars every few weeks and I am guessing there is at least a glimmer of truth to it cuz as you say it would be natural for folks to behave poorly when stressed and stressed this group should be. Hell, and that is for *normal* people. Not freaks of nature, like W.

[Lerkfish]

17. I well imagine this is likely true, but my imaginings do not a story make

Either Capitol Hill Blue has a singular source who ONLY outs to them with explosive material, or this is unfounded.

I am troubled that a source with THAT much inside dirt is ONLY speaking to capitolhill blue. If that source is reading this: hey, try spreading the wealth...talk to other news outlets as well. If its worth leaking, its worth leaking repeatedly and in multiple places.


now, that having been said, I completely believe this could be happening, I just don't believe we'd find out about it in this way.

[MsTryska]

18. Ha!

"What scares me is if he lapses into one of those fogs during a public appearance.”


would we even notice?

[riverwalker]

21. invisible people

who knows? CHB could be a houskeeper, gardner, chef, butler, tailor or any of the many "invisible to the rich" household help. Bush family probably treats them like furniture. They have eyes and ears.

[Uncle Roy]

52. I think you are right about that.

The few CHB reports I've seen have all had that "I was there in the room and this is what I saw" feel to them. Very specific, very focussed on the details of an incident.

And these reports seem consistant with other things we learn from other sources. Remember the Hurricane Katrina story, when everyone was afraid to tell Bush how bad the reality was?

Just think about that for a minute...

After several days of this someone finally put together a DVD of television news reports and gave him that, to watch on his flight to Crawford. But for 4 days, everyone was afraid to tell him face to face?

Something is very, very wrong...

[ChairmanAgnostic]

56. ooooh. forgot about that.

But notice how quickly the MSM dropped the reports about the DVD edukayshun the president had?

Could the same thing be happening here? possibly.

[Dulcinea]

55. That's my guess.

CHB's source is someone Boy George barely knows even exists except to wash the dishes, take out the garbage, & make beer runs.

[Flying Dream Blues]

22. It may not be taken from tape, but I have no doubt it's largely the truth.

[nodehopper]

24. sounds like Ivan the Terrible in his last stages of paranoia

with all the same disregard for human life, but, you know, less vision and acumen in general.

[symbolman]

29. Damn I thought this was another RAW STORY

Developing HARD SCOOP..

You know, where you offer a tidbit of speculation, then everyone rushes to see WHEN the WHOLE story is going to come, but RS has to wait patiently in front of the AP WIRE machine and then re-arrange the wording and then post bits and pieces of it as it "develops"..

THEN by the time you get to the bottom of the thread the WHOLE story is there, neatly packaged and "proving" the speculation at the top of the thread - the speculation being for the most part what everyone has already figured out in most papers and on TV..

BUT since RS is a CUTTING EDGE "Liberal" option we don't want to take the chance that we could be screwing one of our "own" (anyone else here have a site that RAPES you when you show up with 9 or more "popups and popunders" so that you've made them a DIME each time you RUSH to see if they've gotten inbetween the TV/PAPERS and AP WIRE?)..

Nope, just the same old BS from CHB who seem to have a fly on the wall of every room in the White House.. too bad they weren't around when Nixon was being rousted, we would have had complete conversations with no need for the Nixon tapes at all..

Totally bogus, but fun to read..

[starroute]

30. I believe it because this is how things always work

In the fall of 1960, my parents took me to a local Kennedy rally in New York. Kennedy got stuck in traffic and went straight to the major rally at Madison Square Garden, so I never got to see him. But while we were waiting in the cold (and October nights were *cold* back in those days), a women standing next to us in the crowd told us that Nixon was showing increasing signs of stress and was starting to crack up. I wrote about it gleefully it in my diary and spent years after that waiting for Nixon to crack in public. But it never happened, not even all though Watergate. It was only afterwards that the stories about Nixon's bizarre behaior began to emerge.

In the late 60's, an airline stewardess told my husband about JFK's and RFK's affairs -- also years before any of that came out officially. And my aunt used to keep us filled in on the latest gossip about Nelson Rockefeller -- for example, that Happy's youngest child before she divorced her previous husband and married Nelson was really Nelson's. I've never seen that one stated anywhere else.

I don't know how the grapevine works, but these sort of stories get around and always have. (Remember the Greek myth about the palace servant who dug a hole and whispered into it, "King Midas has donkey's ears"?) The insiders tell them because they can't stand the pressure. The press never reports them officially. But the word gets passed along.

[southpaw]

33. Capitol Hill Blue... Right?

I swear, I have not read any aspect of this thread except the TITLE (...Bush cracking up...)

My guess, without reading the title post or any of the responses to it is that this is based on an article published by Capitol Hill Blue.

Am I Right?

I'm gonna go check, now.


On Edit: BINGO! How did I know it was Capitol Hill Blue?

Oh, how I wish it were true... but, alas.

[yellowcanine]

34. Has he started talking to dead presidents in the WH yet like Nixon

did during Watergate?

[rocktivity]

35. "If true, only Rove and Cheney are in charge"--compared to what?

Bush has NEVER been in charge: He's a marionette, and Rove and Cheney have been his masters. What with the shadow of indicment, the post-Katrina disaster, eroding support for Iraq and Cheney's failing health, it seems perfectly logical that Bush would be in a escalating state of paranoia and panic, and that his staff is in major turmoil--Capitol Hill Blue notwithstanding.

:headbang:
rocknation

[ChairmanAgnostic]

37. I sit corrected. what was I thinking?

If some in the GOP are calling Rove to leave, that has to have some impact.

[lutefisk]

36. Is an aide assigned to carry the Presidential straight jacket?

I picture a WH aide, always standing near bush but just out of his sight, ready to rush in at a moment's notice with a straight jacket decorated with a POTUS emblem. I hope that aide is closer than the officer with the football.

[yodermon]

38. Yay! Capitol Hill Blue!

:applause:
Complete and Utter Bunk, but Incredibly Fun to Read.

[insane_cratic_gal]

40. HAHA he did a Cheney!

Bush, whose obscenity-laced temper tantrums increase with each new setback and scandal, abruptly ended one Camp David meeting by telling everyone in the room to “go fuck yourselves” before he stalked out of the room.

[KansDem]

66. My, my, but we do have a couple of potty mouths in the White House...

I wonder if they kiss their mothers with those mouths?

[Imagevision]

41. It's the meds - Bush has to stay on his medication otherwise

he will continue to appear maladjusted, and this is no time to start telling you're staff to go and fuck themselves.

All this bullshit and a whacko in the oval office to boot...!

[leesa]

42. Andy Card has always bee jealous of Rove, hasn't he? Catfight!

[Spazito]

43. I tend to believe the tantrum stories about bush

Way back, while bush was running in 2000, before he was elected, a poster on another site told of bush's behavior when picking up one, or both, of his daughters from a friend's house. He was nasty, arrogant, rude and in a temper because he was forced to pick them up instead of Laura.

Given this was related prior to the 2000 election and was simply a personal account with knowledge of bush as a person, it certainly rang true at that time and still does, imo.

[Zynx]

45. The Madness of George III(He is our 3rd president with the name 'George')

[rocktivity]

47. He may be the third US president with the name 'George'

but he's our second absolute monarch--and we revolted against the first one.

:headbang:
rocknation

[Zynx]

48. George III was not quite an absolute monarch though he pretended to be

After all, he did need parliament for money and a couple times he was not happy with the government he was forced to form.

[rocktivity]

50. DING DING DING! Zynx, you're our grand prize winner!

George III was not quite an absolute monarch though he pretended to be...he did need parliament for money, and a couple times he was not happy with the government he was forced to form.

I rest my case--"I'm not an absolute monarch, but I play one on TV" describes Dubya PERFECTLY! :rofl:

Unfortunately, so does this:

Narcissistic Personality Disorder: A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

(1) has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)

(2) is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

(3) believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)

(4) requires excessive admiration

(5) has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations

(6) is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends (lives "in the moment")

(7) lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others

(8) is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her

(9) shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

And you need a minimum of FIVE of these symptoms? I think he's shown signs of ALL NINE!

:headbang:
rocknation

[Zynx]

53. Right after I posted, I went 'Wait a minute...." ;-)

[peekaloo]

46. The Nixon transformation is almost complete.

:rofl:

p.s. I don't care if it's gossip or not.

[lovuian]

49. Antidepressants and drinking is a bad combo!!!

Read the warnings on the bottles!!!

[ChairmanAgnostic]

51. if you take enough of both, reading is not easy. Bush: case in point

unless it is a riveting book about pet goats.

[LeftHander]

57. NIxon was a surly rambler....

Took to drinking lots of scotch in his last few months in office.

[VaYallaDawg]

58. And turning the air blue swearing, apparently! Hmmm....

[Lisa]

61. even in 2002, Bush was stressed ... (his brush with holistic medicine!)

Interesting article about what happened when he went to a massage therapist (true story!).

"As Kincaid started to work on him, though, he began noticing “stops,” as he calls
them — a tenseness in certain “centers,” indicating the blockage of energy and
emotion.
For as the White House could hardly have known, while Jefferson Kincaid is
certainly an expert in sports massage, he is no ordinary locker-room masseur. He is a
practitioner of spiritual as well as physical healing arts and has long since arrived at
the point where mind and body are one."

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/viewtopic.php?topic=10406&forum=10

[tsuki]

62. This sounds like the Nixon days. eom

[lumpy]

63. Domestic Deepthroat in the WH ?

History says it might be so.

[RamboLiberal]

64. There's something going on with him and there must be rumors

inside the Beltway. John Dean made a brief mention in his book about Bush either drinking and/or on Prozac.

Now I wouldn't care if a President was taking Prozac but it is something we should know.

We've all seen that this guy seems to diminish in speaking ability as time passes. Just look at tapes of him as governor. And he debated Gore better than he debated Kerry - remember how that first debate was an absolute disaster? The facial expressions he made and how the WH had tried to set the rules so the camera wouldn't focus on petulant George while Kerry spoke?

How about the mysterious box on his back we never got an answer for?

To this day I'd love to know the truth about Reagan's Alzheimer's in his second term.

I swear Bush's brain was fried by the drinking and drugs and he is in early Alzheimer's. Or there is some mental disorder.

And while this is CHB, again something is known in the Beltway or the MSM wouldn't have tiptoed around the edges last two months with their temper reports.

A question to you more knowledgeable out there - is he showing any signs of being Bi-Polar? Just wondering if that is a possibility?

Nora Ephron has an interesting bit in The Huffington Post speculating that * is depressed.

....But I've been wondering about what's going on with W ever since he emerged from his bizarre groundhog-like vacation and responded to Hurricane Katrina as if he were under water. He had no affect at all. He was almost robotic. His meager vocabulary seemed to have shrunk even further. He conveyed no feeling for the victims -- and this was early on, way before anyone realized how many poor people were involved. It was strange. What's so hard about cranking yourself up for hurricane victims, especially when you think they're mostly white people who have lost their second homes on the Gulf Coast?

At the time I wondered if Bush was on Paxil or Lexapro, drugs that several of my friends are taking and that seem to have turned them into strangely muted versions of themselves. I asked my friend Rita, who's a shrink, but Rita is very careful about committing on subjects of this sort. She did point out, though, that sometimes, when the President talks, his mouth has a strange sideways twitch, which is apparently common in people who are on antidepressants. Actually it might have been my husband who said this, I can't remember.

But I started thinking about all this again on Sunday. On the Chris Matthews Show, there was some old footage of the president from last year's presidential campaign. He was outdoors, talking to a group of people in hard hats; he was energetic, focused, confident, on top of the world. Now you could easily counter: of course he was, it was a lovely day, he was surrounded by supporters, things were going well. But the President we're seeing these days is a completely different man.

He has, of course, a lot of reasons to be depressed -- no point in enumerating them, you know what they are. But most of all, I think he's depressed because the job has turned out to be so much more onerous than he expected -- he said as much to a friend of mine in September. "You have no idea," he said, "how hard these five years have been." This is a fairly breathtaking remark given the number of people who, thanks to this president, are now dead as a result of his five years in the Oval Office, but never mind.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nora-ephron/whats-eating-george-bush_b_9919.html

[TallahasseeGrannie]

72. I have intimate knowledge of bipolar disorder

and I don't know about Bush. I'm inclined to think not. He doesn't speak rapidly...too controlled. If he were on lithium, he'd show some shaking. Inflated ego, yes. Overspending? Yes... Rage? Maybe.

But his affect..the way he acts in public, doesn't appear manic to me, and I've never seen signs of a debilitating depression, and the low of bipolar disorder is horrific. It is not your garden variety depression that gets better with time. It is a black hole of nothing. I don't think he could function in this role... even get to engagements, etc.

[insane_cratic_gal]

74. I agree and he's not brilliant

I've met and lived with (my dad) people who are bipolar..

Sharp wit and intellectual prowess are very common among those I know who are afflicted with the disease. Given that knowledge, he ain't one of them.

[AntiFascist]

70. They MUST include this scene when they make the film about his downfall nt