Recipe for a monster(*)? Inbreeding, abusive mom, absent dad, early trauma

[ProgressiveEconomist]

trauma

Anyone who saw excerpts from Dubya's Rose Garden press conference Friday and prior interview with Matt Lauer must suspect there's something seriously WRONG with him. Another DU post set me thinking and googling about the kinds of genetic and environmental damage that could have led to Dubya's casual sadism. He openly advocates indiscriminate torture and abrogation of a 57-year-old bedrock international humanitarian treaty. Secret prisons? "So what?"

I am struck by the prevalence of extreme trauma and abuse in the backgrounds of some of the most heartless Republican pols. For example, when former orphan Newt Gingrich was asked about risk to the well-being of children from his proposed employment-focused "welfare reform", he said, "They can go to an ORPHANAGE!" I'll never forget the raw emotion in his voice when he said that word.

Are there similar clues to compassionate understanding of George W. Bush's outrageous and indefensibly dangerous cruelty?

The best online resources I could find (through links in a Huffingtonpost blog article with an entry revealing GHWB and Barb are cousins as well as husband and wife) are

(1) a Counterpunch essay and

(2) excerpts from Justin Franks's book, "Bush on the Couch"

What do you think? What explains Dubya's failure to "get it" about humanitarian concerns over interrogation methods?

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From http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair08312004.html :

"The Life and Crimes of George W. Bush

By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR; August 31, 2004

Understandably, George Sr. spent much of his time far away from Barbara Bush's icy boudoir, indulging in a discreet fling or two while earning his stripes as a master of the empire, leaving juvenile George to cower under the unstinting commands of his cruel mother, who his younger brother Jeb dubbed "the Enforcer." ... According to Neil Bush, his mother was devoted to corporal punishment and would "slap around" the Bush children. She was known in the family as "the one who instills fear." ...

How wicked is Barbara Bush? Well, she refused to attend her own mother's funeral. And the day after her five-year old daughter Robin died of leukemia Barbara Bush was in a jolly enough mood to spend the afternoon on the golf course. Revealingly, Mrs. Bush kept Robin's terminal illness a secret from young George, a stupid and cruel move which provided one of the early warps to his psyche. Her loathsome demeanor hasn't lightened much over the years. Refresh you memory with this quote on Good Morning America, dismissing the escalating body count of American soldiers in Iraq. "Why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many," the Presidential Mother snapped. "It's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?" ...

Frank, author of Bush on the Couch, zeroes in on the crucial first five years of W's existence, where three factors loom over all others: an early trauma, an absent father and an abusive mother. It is a recipe for the making of a dissociated megalomaniac. Add in a learning disability (dyslexia) and a brain bruised by booze and coke and you have a pretty vivid portrait of the Bush psyche. With this stern upbringing, is it really surprising that Bush evidenced early signs of sadism? As a teenager he jammed firecrackers in the orifices of frogs and snickered as he blew them to bits. A few years later, as president of the DKE frathouse at Yale, Bush instituted a branding on the ass-crack as an initiation ritual. Young pledges were seared with a red-hot wire clothes hanger. One victim complained to the New Haven police, who raided the frathouse. The story was covered-up for several decades until it surfaced in Bush's first run for governor of Texas. He laughed at the allegations,
writing the torture off as little more than "a cigarette burn." From Andover to Abu Ghraib. ...

Repositories like Andover and Yale know what to do with the dim children of the elite. George nestled in his niche. No demands were made of him. He spent much his time acquainting himself with a menu of designer inebrients. He was arrested twice. Once for petty theft. Once for public drunkenness. No one cared. When Vietnam loomed, Lil' George fled to New Haven for Houston and the safe harbor of the Texas Air National Guard, then jokingly known as Air Canada--a domestic safe-haven for the combat-averse children of the political elite. It was a deftly executed dodge. His father pulled some strings. Escape hatches opened. The scions of the ruling class, even the half-wits, weren't meant to be eviscerated in the rice paddies of the Mekong--that's why they freed the slaves...."

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And, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_on_the_Couch :

"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bush on the Couch, by Justin Frank

Bush on the Couch is the title of a 2004 book by psychoanalyst Justin Frank. The central premise of Frank's book is that President George W. Bush, as an untreated alcoholic, is in constant danger of a relapse. Further, in Frank's opinion, Bush manifests the symptoms of a dry drunk, principally irritability, judgmentalism and a rigid, unadaptable world view. ...

Death of Robin Bush

Bush's next-eldest sibling, Robin, died of leukemia at the age of three, when he was seven years old himself. Frank argues that this loss, and the way his parents handled it, has had a lasting impact on Bush's psyche. At the time she became ill, Robin was the future president's only sibling (although Jeb Bush was born before she died) and a favorite playmate. His parents never told him that she was sick, although he was asked to stop playing with her. Only after her death did they disclose to him her illness, which had lasted longer than doctors expected it to and had led the Bushes on a frantic quest back East to find a specialist who could treat her. These efforts kept them away from their son for long stretches of time, and he was not present when Robin died, nor at her burial. After the service in Connecticut, Barbara and George H.W. Bush returned to Houston the next day. There was no further attempt at closure or a protracted mourning process, in keeping with WASP mores of
the time. Frank argues that the apparent abruptness of his little sister's passing and the lack of any way to deal with it have had a strong impact on Bush's later personal development.... Shortly after Robin's death, her mother and brother went to a sleepover at the home of friend Randall Roden. The young Bush had difficulty sleeping, awakening out of frequent nightmares and having to be comforted by his mother. ...

Adolescence and Young Adulthood

At Andover, the 13-year-old Bush was assigned to write an essay about an important event in his life. He chose Robin's death. Due to his difficulties in writing, possibly related to undiagnosed dyslexia, it received a poor grade. The teacher made a comment that the essay was "unacceptable." Frank argues that this early incident contributed to the anti-intellectualism some have perceived in Bush's leadership style. Later on in his teen years, he began drinking and eventually developed the alcoholism which would plague him for much of the rest of his life. Frank asserts that Bush was a very heavy drinker from the age of 15 until the age of 40. While alcoholism can have many origins, Frank argues that the unresolved pain from his sister's passing could be one motivator for this self-medication. Frank describes several incidents during Bush's presidency leading him to suspect that Bush resumed drinking during one or more of his many long vacations from the White House. ..."

[suziedemocrat]

1. K&R

[bronxiteforever]

2. Thank you-this explains alot

I have heard that people that knew the Bush family say that family lived in absolute fear of Barbara Bush-very mommy dearest type

[undeterred]

3. Agreed. The recipe we need is for getting rid of a monster

and making the people who still support him open their eyes. I knew he was a monster the first time I heard of him- mocking a woman begging for her life. How do some people come to the conclusion that he is some kind of spiritual giant? He's pure evil.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

6. The future of the world well may depend on understanding how to appeal to

what little remains of Dubya's "better nature". For example, in the past six years, who has asked Dubya to think of the children who might lose their siblings and their best friends if he approved a militarily unnecessary "shock and awe" bombing run?

Monster though he may be, Dubya now has his finger on the button until his term ends, he's impeached, or he resigns. It may pay to find out what makes him tick.

[undeterred]

8. I haven't seen that he has a "better nature" -

I think we need to appeal to the laws that are in place and take him and his cronies out of power.

[momster]

9. Women and Children

What struck me during the Rose Garden presser was his insistence on how we have to have these bills because the 'terrorists kill innocent women and children to achieve their aims'...okay, I'm paraphrasing 'cause I don't have the transcript but he's said it before, one way and another, and he said it again this time. Hasn't anyone mentioned to him that an awful lot of *Iraqi* women and children have lost their lives in his desire to achieve *his* aims? Is it only a crime when a bomb explodes on the ground in the marketplace and not when it is dropped from 20,000 feet up?

[ProgressiveEconomist]

14. Thanks! That's exactly the kind of insight I was seeking when I started

this thread. I had not noticed what you observed, even though I recorded the whole press conference and watched it twice.

[malaise]

24. I snapped at that point

He is fugging delusional as well.

[Danascot]

61. They might mean something to him

if their skin wasn't brown.

[Drops_not_Dope]

77. I believe the phrase

he uses is 'to achieve a political objective.' I think it's known as projection in the psychological field. Simply put, you project your own issues onto another person or situation. He does it nearly every time he gives a speech or news conference.

[anarch]

80. that point might affect him if he was capable of empathy...or reason

but I don't think he is. When he blathers on about feeling bad when people die, he's just faking it.

[Berry Cool]

11. The only problem with all this diagnosis is this.

We don't all have a great childhood or wonderful parents. But we all still have a choice as to how we choose to deal with the crap we were subjected to if we did suffer from horrible events in our childhoods.

We can either look back on how we were treated, find a way to get help with what we haven't yet come to terms with, and then determine that never again will we allow ourselves or our own minds or hearts to be warped by what we suffered, or we can allow it to taint the entire rest of our lives.

Sounds as if Georgie chose the latter route. Or never considered any other alternatives. If his family exhibited an absurdly stiff upper lip regarding the death of a child, and never permitted him to express any emotions over it, he could have changed that by seeking therapy as an adult. If he felt rejected by a teacher for writing a poor essay on his feelings about it, he could have sought to understand more about why his grade was poor, and realized that his enemy wasn't the educational system, it was his undiagnosed dyslexia.

This is not to let his parents or his teachers off the hook. They obviously did him a great disservice by teaching him that his role as one of the patrician elite was to pretend not to have any feelings about anything, and that whatever he did wrong or whatever danger he encountered, Mom and Dad would always be there to bail him out. But he still had free will. He had the power to make his own choices, to make different choices.

He never did. He even married someone who had her own guilty secret to deal with from age 17. Someone who would well understand the culture of secret-keeping into which he had been born, because she had every reason in the world to want people to forget/not find out about HER secret.

In short, there were alternatives to becoming addicted to lies, coverups and secrets as a way of life. He just never chose to explore them.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

12. I agree trying to assign blame for what he's become is futile. But compassionate

understanding of what makes people like Dubya and Newt tick might prove extraordinarily useful in finding their "off" buttons.

[smirkymonkey]

15. Exactly - I know a lot of people whose childhoods were as bad

or worse than GWB's, mine included, yet none of us have turned out to be malignant narcissists or sociopaths. I never would have dreamed about harming animals as a child, even while in the midst of my own trauma - in fact I loved them much more as I identified with their vulnerability.

Many of us who were severely abused have issues with depression, substance abuse, and other minor personality disorders, but I don't know anybody who has turned out to be as cruel, selfish and psychotic as GWB.

Part of his failure as a human being may be due to his upbringing, but I also think a large part of it is due to his lack of character and personal weakness. I believe he was born "bad".

[proud2BlibKansan]

90. I think he is spoiled

He has no work ethic, as he has never had to work a day in his life. He has never been hungry. So on top of a messed up childhood, he never broke ties with his parents and became independent of them and/or their money. So he has never pulled himself up by his own bootstraps, as many repukes like to say, and has never had to survive on his own. If he had, he may have more empathy and a better understanding of how the non-wealthy live.

[treestar]

85. IA, and he was probably just afraid that having sought therapy

would ruin his political chances, if he considered it. The unfortunate American view toward therapy makes it an all-or-nothing proposition.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

89. Yeah--remember McGovern's VP candidate--named Eagleton IIRC?

[treestar]

91. Exactly - instead of getting credit for facing one's problems, one

gets labeled as forever psychotic. People who need shrinks the most (ie, Cheney and Chimpy) never go near one.

[theanarch]

53. it's worse than you think...

...presumably, the incident you refer to is the infamous Karla Faye Tucker execution--according to Tucker Carlson, then Gov. Bush mocked Ms Tucker, saying (in an affected falsetto voice), 'please don't kill me Mr. Governor, please don't kill me; I'm soooo sorry'...what Carlson found do disburbing about the incident was that he had covered Ms Tucker's final press conference, and reported that she had said no such thing; instead, she was calm, composed, dignified and (what must have been particularly galling and insulting to Bush) forgiving. Junior is undoubtedly the most psychologically deformed and emotionally crippled president in our history, and his foreign/domestic policies reflect the depth of his personal depravities.

[ShortnFiery]

4. What we need now is "a recipe" to get him and his fellow sociopaths

out of power. We sure as hell do not want to start a war with Iran. :scared: Someone has to stand up to these Neo-Con ghouls in the Executive Branch. The Senate has found it's spine, thank goodness with the aid of a few honorable Republican members. After November The House will be under a Democratic Majority and we can "get to business" to impeach and indict these evil people.

The most important task that Our Legislature can do is to impeach those who have behaved criminally within the Executive Branch. If they don't they will GRAB Absolute Power over the running of This Nation. :(

[civildisoBDence]

5. But he was sent by God, and God speaks to him!

If nothing else, DUHbya suffers from delusions of grandeur.

Check that--WE suffer from HIS delusions of grandeur.

Newsprism

[Aviation Pro]

7. Why is this only surfacing now in the MSM?

Why in God's name did the MSM give this psychopath a pass during the 2000 election?

[lonestarnot]

13. I haven't seen this on MSM. Where did you see it?

[ProgressiveEconomist]

20. I remember reading about animal cruelty and Dubya's SHOOTING

his little brother with an air rifle, before the 2000 election. Dubya was 16 YEARS OLD when he shot his brother. If he could do that to his own brother then, what can we expect him to be capable of doing to people in other countries now?

And remember when the covered-up DUI arrest in Maine came out at the last miniute? You can't say the electorate was not warned at all; there were a few weak warnings that the Republican disinformation machine manged to downplay and laugh off.

Both the NY Times and the Washington Post published long and fairly thorough campaign biographies, now long gone from the Internet but still available through libraries, if you know the publication dates.

In the future, maybe journos will pay more attention to evidence of childhood animal cruelty, more prevalent among serial killers than among world leaders. And alcoholism in a candidate's family is associated with very undesirable traits in a president: rigidity, isolation, and denial. IMO these background factors shouldn't prevent candidates from running, but candidates' lack of self-awareness of their psychological vulnerabilities demands attention from journalists and the electorate.

There must be references to the Times and Post campaign bios in books that have been published since 2000. For example, I'd like to see the footnotes for this online excerpt from a Random House book, from http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781400096367&view=excerpt :
'The Bushes, by Peter Schweizer and Rochelle Schweizer

CHAPTER 10

Anytime the rains came to Midland, rejoicing could be heard in the Bush home. Little George would anxiously pace around the living room in a soiled T-shirt and jeans waiting for it to let up. When it did, he would burst out the front door and join his friends at a nearby pond. Thousands of frogs would be there, croaking and hopping about. "Everybody would get BB guns and shoot them," recalls Terry Throckmorton, a childhood friend. "Or we'd put firecrackers in the frogs and throw them and blow them up."'

[Mabus]

37. The Baltimore Sun, 12 September 2000

Myriam Miedzian in "Growing Up Is Hard To Do" (The Baltimore Sun, 12 September 2000) perspicaciously and presciently addresses the assertion that "Shrub" Bush evidences "deficient empathic ability and a relative inability to identify with others." She writes:

So when he was a kid, George W. enjoyed putting firecrackers into frogs, throwing them in the air, and then watching them blow up. Should this be cause for alarm? How relevant is a man's childhood behavior to what he is like as an adult? And in this case, to what he would be like as president of the United States?

Cruelty to animals is a common precursor to later criminal violence. But in rural West Texas, where George W. grew up, it was not uncommon for some boys to indulge in such cruelty.

His blowing up frogs or shooting them with BB guns with friends does not have the same significance it would have if, for example, a city boy blew up the family cat. In fact, George's childhood friend, Terry Throckmorton, openly and laughingly admits, "We were terrible to animals."

more at: http://www.blackcommentator.com/28/28_guest_commentary_1_pr.html

[Mabus]

38. "Branding Rite Laid to Fraternity." The New York Times, Nov. 8, 1967.

Rather than try to improve his grades and prove he belonged, Bush lobbied to become president of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, where he conceived the illegal idea to actually brand pledges. Forming the Greek letter "Delta" from a coat hanger, Bush would heat the wire and then burn the backsides of pledges during their initiation rituals.

The Yale Daily News called the frat-house brandings "sadistic and obscene." Despite photographic evidence in the paper to the contrary, Bush, who never had himself branded, told The New York Times that the scarring was "only a cigarette burn." 7

Several of his victims who were branded said otherwise. One pledge told the Yale newspaper that he was beaten, and the branding was almost a relief. "By that time, my body was so numb that the iron felt good - like a match being held close to my body," he said. "Despite Yale's Ivy sophistication, pledging a fraternity at Yale is often a degrading, sadistic and obscene process." 8

The 1967 article detailed how pledges had to sit with their heads between their legs for two to five hours and were kicked if they as much as moved or even coughed. The Yale fraternity board fined Bush's frat, and the brandings stopped. In a Yale article in 2005, Albert Evans, president of the Inter-Fraternity Council in 1967 and Bush acquaintance, admitted what Bush did was illegal. "What DKE was doing was clearly outside the rules, and they were sanctioned for that," Evans said. 9

more at: http://www.geocities.com/jacksonthor/cheat1.html

There's still a lot of stuff out there on the internet. You just have to find it.

[lonestarnot]

40. LOL current.

[bobbieinok]

55. DUI was 'leaked' the weekend before the election to DIVERT attn

from the Friday news conference of Inouye and Kerrey (of NE), both having served in the military, about W skipping out on his Natnl Guard duty (he didn't show up in AL/GA, where he was sent).

Kerrey said that week that he had JUST HEARD about W being AWOL, and he was furious.

The DUI story broke the next day. The reporter had known about this story for some time but picked that weekend to publish. (I believe the reporter worked for some organization affiliated with or owned by FOX.)

And OF COURSE the republicans claimed foul b/c story was released so late. NO MENTION of the fact DUI coverage was used to hide AWOL story.

[Drops_not_Dope]

83. WP Link on 7 part series - - a bio

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/shoulderbox/bushseries1999.htm


Bush: The Making of a Candidate




A seven-part series on Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush traces the Texas governor's lifelong effort to reconcile the expectations placed on him with the success he sought. (Also see Post series: "Understanding Bush" and "Bush's Texas Record.")

[ProgressiveEconomist]

87. Thanks for that link! I remember this story, and the Oedipal musings

about it from such scurrilous early Bush critics as Gore Vidal:

From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/wh2000/stories/bush072699.htm :

'Tragedy Created Bush Mother-Son Bond

... as his father's career became all-consuming, the oldest son … only 20 years younger than his parents … came to function as a third adult in the household, and something of a young uncle to the other children. Once, in the mid-1960s in Houston, when his father was out of town, he drove his mother to the hospital when she was having a miscarriage. Halfway there, Barbara Bush told her son, "I don't think I'll be able to get out of the car." "I'll take you to the emergency room, don't worry," her son assured her. "He picked me up the next day. ... He talked to me in the car and he said, 'Don't you think we ought to talk about this before you have more children?' " his mother recalled.

To his much younger brothers and sisters Bush seemed his own force of nature, an exciting, unpredictable hurricane who could make any family gathering an event. "We all idolized him," said sister Doro Bush Koch. "He was always such fun and wild, you always wanted to be with him because he was always daring. ... He was on the edge." "We'd go out in the boat at night and that was always an adventure. Now, if we went out in the boat at night with Neil, you know that was fine because he's a boatsman, my brother Neil, and he knew everything about it … and still does. George, on the other hand, it was more of a kind of a wild risky thing because we're not sure that he, you know, could manage the boat as well."'

[emald]

10. frankly, I don't give a shit what the chimperors' problems are

we all have harrowing possibilities in our background that could have turned us into evil monsters but most find the balance that being a true human being calls for. Balance that involves weighing motives, considering opposing opinions, listening to different ideas, being open to change for the better. But not the idiot in chief we now have to deal with. No, his way is to blame others for his shortcomings.
We had better get rid of this monster asap or our country is toast. If it isn't already.

[Nikia]

16. Wow, is that really true?

I knew about most of it but not about him blowing up frogs and torturing pledges.
This man should have never become president and certainly not allowed to continue after his first term. There are many people out there that did grow up like Bush, have a sadistic side, or have serious drug or alcohol problems. Fortunately, most of them have no inclination to hold an important job like the presidency of the United States. It was only because of who his parents were that such a thing was even a possibility for him.

[Jade Fox]

17. Justin Frank's book is good, but.....

I'd like to know where St. Clair is getting his info. I'm no fan of Barbara Bush, but his piece reads like a misogynistic vendetta. The way the Bush parents dealt with their daughter's death and what they told George about it amounted to standard conventional wisdom at the time. It seems cruel and stupid now, but at the time people thought you should shield children from bad things by simple pretending they didn't happen.

Frank's book talks about how much his beloved sister Robin's death affected George. IMO he stopped developing emotionally at that point, due to being unable to express his grief and rage at her death and the way his parents handled it.

[knitter4democracy]

43. I agree.

He is mad she went golfing, but that involves using all your energy to hit something, which I'm sure she needed that day. I am also seriously uncomfortable judging someone in how she expresses and deals with her grief, especially a mother who's left on her own for vast periods of time to raise a sick child and a son with dyslexia (which wasn't known and probably blamed on her).

After reading Kitty Kelly's book, I feel sorry for Bar. She chose her life in some ways, but she also had a lot happen to her without any choice in the matter. She had a difficult set of in-laws, a husband who cheated and was gone a lot of the time, and difficult kids to raise without a whole lot of help. I don't agree with how she handled it, but I'm not going to attack her for it.

[Jade Fox]

46. I agree with you........

Reading about the Bush daughter's death is the only thing that has ever made me feel sorry for George. Years later, when his second sister Dorothy was born (George was twelve), he couldn't handle it. Bush is on record as saying it felt like Dorothy was supposed to be some sort of replacement for his sister Robin, and like Robin never existed. That's how much his sister's death still affected him, and how badly his family handled his feelings about it. But again, they were following the conventional wisdom of the day. It's likely that, at the time, most other families would have done something similar.

[Blue_In_AK]

63. I have experience with this.

My mother was killed by a drunk driver when I was almost 8. I had spent the night with a friend and was not in the accident that the rest of my family suffered. My mother lived for a couple of days, but when she died, no one told me directly. I heard the grown ups talking about it, but no one ever took me aside and told me she had died and talked with me about my feelings. The rest of my family was hospitalized for months, and in those days they wouldn't even let kids visit. My grandmother who watched over me for eight months was strict and cold, and I felt desperately alone in the world.

Probably many people my age (and W's) have had similar experiences, or worse. I doubt that many of us became sociopaths like Mr. Bush.

[lumberjack_jeff]

18. Almost makes you feel sorry for that son of a bitch. Almost. n/t

[soothsayer]

19. That's kind of the recipe used in the Boys from Brazil, isn't it?

When they are trying to create another hitler?

[Gregorian]

21. The scariest part is,... and half the country identifies with him.

And that we cannot change with an election.

Forgive my photoshop. I'm only posting this because of it's importance in this discussion. Before I pasted the Statue of Liberty onto this, it was Bush in his full-on aggressive behavior. I believe it's three fouls all in one play.

[robbedvoter]

22. I hate these analysis . Clinton didn't have an easy life but grew up

adjusted and emotionally healty.
Let's not blame bush's horrible self on his family, on Rove, on Cheney.
he is a monster. Period.
He watched the Abu Grahim videos then came out and said publicly: Great job, Rumsfield.!
THAT makes him a monster, not his past, entourage, freudian slips.
His actions. Period.

[FredStembottom]

23. This Bush-on-the-couch stuff does us no good.

Anyone can declare anyone else defective, plagued with issues, emotionally deformed. It is the purest of pure speculation and best left to Ken Burns somewhere in the future.

It is completely useless in the desperate struggle we face now to convince enough Bush supporters to see the lunacies in Bush's policies to stop us from plunging over the cliff. Because spinning a case for the defectiveness of Bush also implies the defectiveness of each and every Bush supporter. This implicit insult to any and all Bush supporters can only make them hyper-defensive, driving them into an even closer alliance with their leader - and over the cliff we go.

Besides, we have been declared equally defective by the likes of Ann Coulter and the entire neo-con establishment. So....there you are. It's a stalemate.

Progressives must be different. Progressives must say: Here is the overwhelming evidence that policy A is dangerous poppy-cock. Here is the folly of Policy B etc. you are welcome to join us against these insane policies at any time.

There will be a hard-core cultish group that will never desert the Dear Leader but a large portion of his supporters are held in place only by the cement of RW talk-radio lying and MSM collusion. Point up the purposely hidden details, the "rest of the story", and show them the intellectual get-out-of-jail-free card that is progressive thinking and that is adequate to persuade enough of them to step into the light. Not all - but enough.

But they won't - they can't - step into a glaring spotlight of shame. Who would?

[ProgressiveEconomist]

25. I'd have been more sympathetic to your argument a week ago. But

Dubya has opened himself up to this kind of inquiry with two close-to-the-edge preformances on national TV in the past week. Everybody's buzzing about it. Rats like Joe Scarborough are jumping off Dubya's sinking ship.

Did you ever see Bill Clinton at the point of a dysfunctional breakdown on national TV. Unlike Dubya's thin skin, Clinton's self control still amazes me. I remember when a videographer (Nam Jeun Paik?) rigged his pants to drop to his feet and pushed the button while asking Clinton a question at the podium after a speech. Clinton never even cracked a smile!

[FredStembottom]

26. Oh, he's really nuts, allright!

I don't disagree with the * diagnosis - I just feel that it is his job to take himself apart in public - not ours.

Again, anyone can call anyone else nuts and scrounge up a vast pile of comment to back it up. The overall effect is detrimental. Just gets a furious round of resentment, pouty lower lips and "I know you are but what am I" sessions going.

I want to say to recovering Bush supporters "Glad you changed your mind. Welcome." They will self-provide all the shame they can bear as reason sets in.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

27. Glad you don't disagree with the speculation. It does take Dubya down

a peg, doesn't it?

I was just trying to provide a perspective I haven't seen on this board. Dubya is to be PITIED, not hated, as a human being, even as we fight his unprecedented, pathological abuse of the political process.

Have you seen or heard about Karl Rove's new unsanctioned biography, "The Architect"? What I said about Newt and Dubya in my OP goes double for Karl Rove, if what I read there is true. There's less to fear from people like him if you know the secrets that may underlie their pathologies.

[FredStembottom]

50. I thrive on "gray-areas" like you are offering......

I don't know if I can round up pity for him, though.

But I endorse your effort to present him as a sympathetic character. That's a big job, however - millions of folks have bad childhoods but don't build an evil empire as a response.

Then again.....did he build any of it? I am more inclined to believe that he is just a dupe, chosen for his hollowness and ignorance, so that a completely unsaleable Dick Cheney could act as president.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

51. You still haven't answered the question I asked you in post #27

Talk about gray areas!

[FredStembottom]

56. Sorry 'bout that! Slipped my mind.

I have only heard about "the Architect" being released. Good reading?

[ProgressiveEconomist]

59. At the bookstore, I had time only for a quick browse. "Architect"

has some must-read tidbits, though; that much I was able to glean from a quick flip through the pages. Rove's childhood home life makes Dubya's look like "Ozzie and Harriet".

[Fovea]

67. I can pity him for a messed up childhood

I can pity him a pathologically cruel mother.

I cannot pity him for laughing at condemned Texas prisoners, in the one case or Iraq in the 150K cases that followed the ego-based invasion by that giggling murderous ass-clown John "W" Gacy wannabe.

[galloglas]

28. From Capitol Hill Blue

In early '04 (possibly late '04) Doug Thompson carried an article about Bush and his bizarreness, and a breaking report of Bush being on SSRIs.

The story was later disavowed, not because it had not been double-sourced, but because of the editorial policies of someone brought in by Doug as a "wagon-master".

The upshot is this.

Way back in that time, Bush was reportedly on meds, this being confirmed by his doctor. But what meds, and what for, was totally off limits to ask Bush's doc. But, CHB kinda assumed SSRIs (antidepressants).

A liberal-tilted discussion group I attend monthly had several mental health care people aboard. We had just finished prior monthly discussions about "Bush on the Couch", as well as the PBS show (forgot title) which shows Bush's evangelical turn during the late nineties.

A discussion ensued and a retired psychiatrist was asked for his best guess as to what Bush might take every 12 hours. The CHB report was referenced and a guess of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (and thus the drug, an anticonvulsant, i.e., carbamazapine, etc.) was made and a medication postulated.

The second program (on PBS) had an interview with a Texas preacher who quoted Bush as saying (in about 1998), "You know, I think God might have chosen me to become President."

The scene was unnerving and made me think of Paul on the road to Damascus. Except, Paul is regarded as a man having suffered from Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, which very often causes hallucinations of a religious nature. In addition, a temporarily-blinded Hitler had a similar experience and symptoms returning to Berlin as WWI wound down, and the "vision" told him he was to be the Saviour of the Reich.

I wondered then if Bush could be suffering the same TLE. It can be brought on by alcohol or cocaine abuse, so it made sense.

At any rate, I wrote Thompson for confirmation of the SSRIs. He stood by the story of Bush taking medication every twelve hours. But, in an exchange, Thompson tacitly acknowledged that the medication could have been for something like TLE.

It is clear to me that, at that time, Bush was on meds to keep him under control. What they are, how goofy he really is, I can only observe via the media.

But burrowing into CHB would shed some light on this issue, I think, for those of you in this string who ponder the sanity of the POTUS.

PS. Sorry I didn't (don't) have time to find all the cites for this. Other fish to fry, so to speak.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

30. Wonder whether Dubya's doctors have seen his recent media coverage

If so, they must already be tinkering with his meds.

Also, after seeing Justin Frank's speculation about drinking during Dubya's long vacations (quoted at the end of my OP), I'd like to see a timeline that details when he was on vacation and when his behavior was especially bizarre ("God chose me"... "Third Awakening"). Sometimes probable cause and probable effect jumps out from a timeline.

[galloglas]

39. Bush always has a Dr. as close as his "Nuclear Football".

from what I was told in that exchange regarding CHB. It is definitely no blood pressure med the doc gives and says, "Call me in a month, or if you have any adverse affects."

He is watched like a hawk!

As to "Sometimes probable cause and probable effect jumps out from a timeline." is an on the money observation, IMHO.

His August vacation during 2003, five months after the Invasion, was I month I took note of. I wish I could recall the specifics, but there were several times my gut told my head, "Ahaaa!"

Also, "seeing Justin Frank's speculation about drinking during Dubya's long vacations" brings up a thought I've had (which I also floated out for vetting to some mental health folks).

I think that his medical keepers have decided it is better to let Bush be a "hidden tippler" than to risk his coming completely unglued under pressure sometime, and chugging a bottle of Wild Turkey.

But I don't think his drinking is confined to vacations. There is talk about a "half glass of wine" as his constitutional, and the parsing of the phrasing "quit drinking". Many consider him a "dry drunk", not a reformed drinker. And, if so, that might be an upside scenario, considering the alternatives.

Myself, I think I have seen him (visibly, but barely so) under the influence several times in the last two years. Just a little tooo jolly, sometimes, considering whatever circumstances surrounded it.

If I am right, the man is a walking time bomb. It's like he is sooo screwed up, he is in an ICU, but is allowed to walk and talk, by his keepers, as long as he abides by their rules.

[Stardust]

64. Remember the several pix of *B* with bruises on his face recently

in DU (I can't find the thread.) Someone observed that although they themselves had very active lives, they *never* wound up with bruises the likes of which * sports after his Crawford vacations. I've lived with someone with a drinking problem and I recognize the signs. Pretzels, indeed.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

65. Keen observation. Now *'s refusals to come out and meet with Cindy

could take on a different meaning altogether. He may have REALLY resented her intrusions on valuable imbibing time. Has Cindy Sheehan ever invited him to come and have a drink with her? Crawford may be a key pressure-point for getting Dubya to self-destruct completely next "vacation".

[galloglas]

73. As a matter of fact, yes...

Not specifically a drink, but an invitation to come meet at Camp casey, where beer was being drunk.

The response from "the Ranch" was to ignore the request and tend to a greeting of an Under-Secretary of Lizards and Geese, or somesuch thing, from Lower Slobovia at the Crawford airport.

But, you are right about pressure.

If someone can manage to get him isolated from his surrogate "mommies" for a while, then turn up the heat, Bush would self-destruct, cracking like sugar candy under a mallet.

I've often wondered what Bush would look like if he were ever "Edmund Muskied"?

And, if anyone can fish it out, Tony Blair made the unfortunate mistake of going on live TV about the time of the breaking of the Dowing Street memos. One hour, I think. He looked like a cornered animal... guess he was, at that... and there was no place to run.

If Bush is ever put in that position, he will have to be taken away in a straighy-jacket.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

74. "Bush would crack like sugar candy under a mallet"! I love it!

[The Deacon]

29. So, What's Your Point?

Sounds like a typical privledged Northeastern WASP childhood to me.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

33. (1) Hug your child every day, if you have one. (2) Are there patterns in D...

Dubya's increasingly bizarre behavior and pronouncements? I'm trying to make sense of the irrational in contemporary Presidential politics, and asking other DUers for help.

[BrklynLiberal]

31. I believe one could add some fetal-alcohol syndrome in there as well.

If it weren't for the silver-spoon in his mouth, and the privileged family that saved his ass so many times, Dimson would have ended up as another Ted Bundy. He would have killed dozens instead of hundreds of thousands.
Of course, Bundy was actually more intelligent than Dimson.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

32. Any online links about Barb's drinking?

Preferably MSM or reputable book-publishers

[soothsayer]

34. You can just LOOK at her and see what a mean drunk she prolly

is

[indepat]

35. None of this matters a whit to faithful true believers: besides W

is born-again, divinely-inspired, and like the Pope, cannot err in matters of doctrine, be it pre-emptive war, torture, destruction of the environment, or the off-loading countless hundreds of billions of dollars from the treasury to donors.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

36. I'm not so sure. I'd like to know why Joe Scarborough just jumped ship,

all of a sudden. I suspect it's because Dubya almost "lost it" on national TV during the past week, twice.

Most people walk away from people who act and speak irrationally, as Dubya seemed to be doing on the Today Show.

Dubya may be in the process of converting both the fear and the admiration he has inspired into pity.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

41. What might Dubya's "Fartman" persona tell us about his alcoholism

and about how to prevent catastrophic consequences for the world?

In other recent DU threads, someone said that Dubya often acts like he's 15 years old, and someone else said that an alcoholic's socio-emotional development remains frozen at the age he started drinking. If the second poster was correct, the first poster was spot-on about Dubya's emotional age: see psychiatrist Frank's assertions, quoted in the OP, about when Dubya started his love affair with the bottle.

Last month, US News and World Report published a tidbit alleging Dubya loves to embarrass young aides with indescribably uncouth behavior in the Oval Office. Former AP/Newsweek reporter Robert Parry recently used this observation as a take-off point for many possible insights into what makes Bush tick:

From http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/082606.html :

"Bush's Disdainful Presidency By Robert Parry; August 26, 2006

The U.S. news media always makes light of George W. Bush's tendency to put down others through disparaging comments about their personal appearances or by assigning them silly nicknames. It's just the 'inner frat boy' coming out, we're told. So, when U.S. News cited 'a top insider' describing how Bush likes to fart in the presence of junior White House staffers as a joke on them, the item was given the boys-will-be-boys title: 'Animal House in the West Wing.' According to U.S. News, Bush was just 'a funny, earthy guy who, for example, can't get enough of fart jokes. He's also known to cut a few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides.' Bush was described, too, as someone who 'loves to cuss (and) gets a jolly when a mountain biker wipes out trying to keep up with him.' (U.S. News, Aug. 20, 2006) But Bush's behavior could be viewed in a less sympathetic light. Given his famous thin skin whenever he feels slighted, his eagerness to demean others could be interpreted as a sign of his dynastic authority, a modern-day droit du seigneur in which he can humiliate others but they can't return the favor. Indeed, this tendency to assert his superior position over others by subjecting them to degrading treatment has been a recurring part of Bush's persona dating back at least to his days as an 'enforcer' on his father's presidential campaigns. ...

As Texas governor, Bush would mock people on Death Row. In a famous interview with conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, Bush imitated condemned murderess Carla Faye Tucker's unsuccessful plea for clemency. 'Please don't kill me,' Bush whimpered through pursed lips, mimicking the woman he had put to death. Other times, Bush showed how prickly he can be when facing criticism. During a campaign stop in Naperville, Ill., Bush groused to his running mate, Dick Cheney, about what Bush considered negative coverage from New York Times reporter Adam Clymer. 'There's Adam Clymer--major league asshole--from the New York Times,' Bush said as he was waving to a campaign crowd from a stage in Naperville, Ill. 'Yeah, big time,' responded Cheney. Their voices were picked up on an open microphone.

During a presidential debate in 2000, Bush was back to making light of Texas executions. While arguing against the need for hate-crimes laws, Bush said the three men convicted of the racially motivated murder of James Byrd were already facing the death penalty. 'It's going to be hard to punish them any worse after they're put to death,' Bush said, with an out-of-place smile across his face. Beyond the inaccuracy of his statement--one of the three killers had received life imprisonment--there was that smirk again when discussing people on Death Row....

The Bushes show no modesty about their extraordinary political dynasty. At family events, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush wear matching caps and wind-breakers emblazoned with the numbers 41 and 43, identifying their presidencies. George W. Bush also relished the fawning news coverage that followed the 9/11 attacks, complete with suggestions from the likes of NBC's Tim Russert that Bush's selection as President might have been divinely inspired. In a round-table discussion on Dec. 23, 2001, Russert joined New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and First Lady Laura Bush in ruminating about whether divine intervention had put Bush in the White House to handle the crisis. So, Bush had come to see himself as beyond accountability, much as ancient royalty viewed their own powers as unlimited under the divine right of kings.... Now we're told that George W. Bush has another way of demonstrating his supremacy over subordinates: when new White House aides are brought in to be introduced to the President of the United States, the President farts."

[tomreedtoon]

42. This shows why "Dynasty" and "Dallas" were all lies.

Many of you - especially the female DU'ers - got a kick out of "Dynasty," "Dallas," "The Colbys" and all those other rich-people sitcoms in the 70's. They were all based on those Jackie Collins and Barbara Steele craptastic romance novels. It was the Reagan era, when if everyone had faith in Reagan and followed his lead, we'd all be rich. (Well, we see how well that worked out...but I digress.)

Everyone loved people like that character Joan Collins played, sleeping around, twisting men into doing her will, and making "bitch" not an insult but a compliment and a life goal. It was all great fun, and only the rich people were hurt, right? None of the little people or civilians or the body politic were in any danger, right? It was a big, harmless carnival of corruption, right?

Welcome to reality.

The fact is that conceited, rich people's misdeeds DO affect everyone. When Barbara Bush turns her son into an abused, messed-up wreck and then makes him President, it does affect you. It closes factories, throws hundreds of thousands out of work, strands people in New Orleans's own version of Calcutta, and sends thousands of young men to die in a futile war.

And guess what? You're still worshipping the same type of behavior on Wisteria Lane. That red-headed whore on "Desperate Housewives" is rich. Maybe not rich in the view of Rumsfeld, but she owns a house, which not one in a hundred working people can afford, so that makes her rich. And isn't she just a younger version of Collins's character or Barbara Bush? And you, you idiots, you're lapping it up, and you still think it's harmless entertainment.

And I thought Democrats and progressives were supposed to be more intelligent than Republicans. My bad.

[Bullwinkle925]

44. I have a question ...

Jeffrey St. Clair and Justin Frank have Barbara Bush doing 2 different things the day after their daughter, Robin, passed away. I had heard previously that she was on the golf course the day after Robin's death, but Frank puts her on a plane heading back to Texas.

I can't stand the woman, but which is it?

:shrug:

[ProgressiveEconomist]

45. Excellent question. The answer you seek may lie in the answer to

another question: Where was Robin buried? Was her body flown back to Texas? If not, in all likelihood Bar was back East, assuming she attended Robin's funeral.

But with this kooky family, who knows? Who knows whether there even WAS a funeral for Robin?

[Bullwinkle925]

48. What a clan of freaks.

I do have to say that I did not attend my mother's funeral, either. Not because I had better things to do - rather was too devastated to see her in her casket. I had just returned from visiting her in the hospital to my home in another state when she passed away a few days later. I've never regretted not getting back on a plane and returning to the Midwest. I relish having the last few memories of her in life rather than in death.

I do not know the details of Babs not attending her Mother's funeral. I cannot pass judgment on those kinds of things, but I can judge her for her comments and seemingly lack of conscience for those who are in need.

[noamnety]

47. The "cousin" thing is misguided and offensive

I think you need to do some research on cousin marriages before spouting off further on that angle.

You could start here: http://www.cousincouples.com/?page=facts

[ProgressiveEconomist]

49. I've heard of that site and that argument. I didn't mean to offend

anybody--I confess to using "inbreeding" for its shock value in "piling on" poor Dubya after his very bad week in the media.

I freely admit I'm no expert on genetics, and you very well may be 100 percent correct.

What I was trying to do in this thread was to pull back the curtain on "The Great and Powerful Oz" currently occupying our White House.

[noamnety]

69. I don't know how you could have heard of that site

yet continue to post stuff like this.

My grandparents are cousins. Many many people, including, odds are, yourself, have cousins in their family tree at some point. I would like to see an actual apology in your answer, for referring to my family tree as a "recipe for a monster."

About 20% of marriages worldwide are between cousins. It's fairly common among Muslims - did you mean to imply they are creating monsters also?

[ProgressiveEconomist]

70. OK, I apologize for referring to your family tree as a "recipe for a monster"

Again, I was using rumors about "inbreeding" in the Bush family purely for shock value, and it did not enter my head that somebody might be deeply offended. I sincerely apologize for hurting your feelings.

[Felinity]

71. I'm not a statistician but I could use one right now

From the website:

"Children of non-related couples have a 2-3% risk of birth defects, as opposed to first cousins having a 4-6% risk."

It goes on to say "In plain terms first cousins have at a 94 percent + chance of having healthy children."

Well I guess that glass is way more than half full, and I'm all for looking for the positive, but isn't 4-6% double the risk of 2-3%?

The frequency of of cousin marriages in the US is 1 in 1000, so using the median risks of 2.5% and 5%, that would mean an additional 25 children (5%-2.5%) with birth defects per 100,000 total marriages, assuming a birth rate of 1 child per marriage. How many marriages per year are there in the US, and what is the average number of children per marriage (I'm asking--anyone know)?

My statistics are a little rusty. If there is a 5% chance of a couple having a child with a birth defect, what is the total probability of having at least one child with a birth defect if they dip into the gene pool 5 times? (how many little bushies were birthed, by the way?)

BTW, I had to completely turn off Content Advisor to view that site!!

[ProgressiveEconomist]

72. For marriage and birth data, the first place to look is

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/births.htm .

If the probability of an event in one trial is p, then the probability of at least one event in 3 trials is the probability of NO events subtracted from 1

1 - { (1-p) * (1-p) * (1-p) }

Hope that helps

[Felinity]

81. Check my math, please

So if two cousins married and had three children, the probability of one of them having a birth defect is approx. 14.3%? 5 births = 22.6%

Probability for 5 births to non-cousin parents = 11.9%

Conclusion: If you marry your cousin and have 5 children, chances are better than one in five that one of them will have a birth defect.

Anybody like those odds?

It strikes me that the even the 2-3% for non-related partners is high. I wonder if that rate has increased or decreased over the past century or two.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

82. Who can afford five children these days? Three seems much more

plausible.

[Felinity]

92. I think Babs and Daddy Bush had five or more. n/t

[noamnety]

93. And now let's put that in perspective

The rate of birth defects for offspring of cousins is LESS than the rate of birth defects for children conceived through In Vitro Fertilization, and roughly the same as the rate for women over 40. So if you are preparing to make an argument that it's unethical for cousins to have children because of potential defects, to be ethically consistent you would have to have stronger condemnation for all couples that use IVF (and an equal level of outrage/disapproval for women over 40 who have decided to have children).

[Felinity]

95. So basically, all of these situations double the risk.

Accepted. What bothers me is not the right of prospective parents in any of these categories to choose that risk, but who bears the brunt of the pain if the wager doesn't pay off as desired. I say it's the child; the parents, yes, but they had a choice.

I really don't care if cousins marry or not, but in my opinion the social relationship is more important than the physical one. I have less of a problem with cousins who have not grown up together than those who have had close familial ties through childhood; it just seems incestuous to me. I am naive enough to appreciate a "hands-off" environment within a close family circle, a little corner of the world where people do not look at each other as potential sexual partners.

My problem with was really with the website about cousins which did not acknowledge the additional risk as material.

Thanks for your information.

[noamnety]

96. Not quite

Two of the situations (cousins and women over 40) double the risk, IVF more than doubles it.

What you are getting into, when you start talking about the rights of certain people to produce offspring based on the quality of their offspring, is eugenics. Not sure you really want to go there.

If you must go there, however, then perhaps you need to ask yourself what an acceptable level of risk is. 3% is within the normal range. 4% is within the first cousin range. Does that 1% make the difference in your mind between being ethical or not ethical? Maybe nobody should risk having kids, because that 3% rate is immoral, since the child is the one that bears the brunt of the pain if it doesn't "pay off" as desired.

I'm going to suggest you look further than one page before making sweeping statements about that website - other parts of the site talk about genetic counseling for ANY couple, not just cousin couples. And perhaps that's the position you hold, that you advocate genetic testing and counseling for all couples before they are "allowed" to have children. At any rate, the information on the website is supported by current research.

There's a good article on the issue from the NYT -
No Genetic Reason to Discourage Cousin Marriage, Study Finds" at http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/03/health/03CND-COUS.html?ex=1158724800&en=18de25c5e65c861a&ei=5070


I will add that I do think you are being a little naive, to use your word, if you believe attempts to construct a social taboo out of relationships that have been the norm throughout history and throughout various cultures will somehow prevent people from experiencing desire for each other.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

98. Felinity--thank you so much for injecting facts and logic into this sidebar,

rather than allow bluster, bulllying, and apples-oranges comparisons.to dominate.

[Raine]

52. I would actually feel sorry for him

if he wasn't so evil but after 6 years I have no sympathy left for someone like him.

[femrap]

54. He's a sadist sociopath who truly enjoys

causing the suffering of others. I'd rather be in the company of a rabid dog than him.

[Coyote_Bandit]

57. Some

who experience trauma and abuse at a very young age grow up and mature and heal and often become very compassionate - and usually quite committed to helping others. Others refuse to deal with the tragedy and never heal. Those choose to remain victims and they let the consequences of their suffering dictate their approach to life.

Place the responsibility where it belongs. Not on tragedy but on individual choice. No need to stigmatize those who have already overcome difficult circumstances.

edit for spelling

[ProgressiveEconomist]

58. Very good point. Not getting help for his problems

or lacking the self-awareness to realize he has severe problems is part of the recipe for producing a sick puppy like Dubya.

I was asking for help in compassionately understanding Dubya and in how to reduce the unimaginable harm he's still capable of visiting on the world. Assessing blame was never my aim.

IMO we need to understand how this monster was assembled so that we can disassemble him through frustration of his political stunts and bullying of the media and Congress.

[Coyote_Bandit]

60. Yes, I understand your point

But I do not think others who suffered trauma when they were young should be compared to shrubbie. That comparison becomes inevitable when such trauma is made a major part of the equation. We must be careful not to assume or imply that all who share traumatic experiences react in the same ways - a kind of guilt by association.

I disagree that traumatic experiences in and of themselves turn people into "monsters." Clearly, some overcome such difficulties and challenges while others ignore them, others medicate them and still others use them as an excuse. It is not the experience it is the reaction and how the young "victim" identifies and internalizes and resolves the issue.

I would bet shrubbie has a pattern of behavioral tendencies and attitudes that can be traced back to his childhood. Most of us do. I would further suppose that changing his behavior is going to somehow be related to these long established patterns - regardless of whether they are used as a carrot or a stick.

[Danascot]

62. Excellent related thread - check it out

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=2156135

[lavenderdiva]

66. can you provide some sort of link, other than the word of

a poster at Huffington to support that George and Barbara are cousins? I find no evidence of this in the Huffington Post article, other than some comment, after the original post, where someone is stating this. I have googled it, and can find nothing to support this claim.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

68. I wouldn't stake my life on that tidbit of alleged genealogy. Here's a link

to the DU forum where I picked up the rumor--

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=449551&mesg_id=449666

Are you a genealogist? Surely you must be more of a genealogist than I am.

[bridgit]

75. for what it's worth...

http://kinnexions.com/kinnexions/cousinsa.htm George HW's line is validated with 'Pierce', well before he marries Bab's, also a Pierce...cousins? first cousins? who can say for certain :shrug:

[galloglas]

99. Bush's Genealogy

I really don't have the time to track it back now but once, recently, I had occasion to check out this accursed bloodline in an (successful) attempt to see if the Bush's line connected to Mark S. "Thor" Hearne, the GOP hack who testified before the Carter-Baker commission.

Net result is this (if memory serves): Barbara and George are related through the Walker family line, from St. Louis Missouri.

The Walkers are an American Civil War profiteering family found in Missouri, which became very prominent in St. Louis mercantile and, later, legal circles in eastern central Missouri.

The research is something that had a double purpose:

First, connecting and tarring "Thor".

Secondly, my own family.

I have a grandfather with the first and middle names "Herbert Walker", my father was a "Herbert Walker ______, Jr.", and my brother is a Herbert Walker ________, III."

In Missouri, those things don't happen by accident. And, as a ER advocate, I really had to prove/disprove my bona fides to some others who knew of those names.

In the end, good news.

My family made wagons and sold them to the Union Army (serving in it also) during the Civil War. The Walkers were intermediaries in the transactions, and a couple of Walkers (of George's kin) married into my family about five generations back.

Which makes me... OH, MY GOD!!!!... it makes me both furious and/or afraid. (and I've never even been invited to Kennebunkport, either).


Where are my children now? What are they doing?!!

I now ask, in advance, any forgiveness I might need for continuing my line.

[Rosemary2205]

76. The Babs and GHWB cousins inbred thing is pure BS.

4 times removed. You are probably more closely related to your neighbors than they are to each other. The Bushitas suck but not because of this.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

78. I agree with you. When I wrote the OP, I thought it MIGHT be true,

there MIGHT be some common ancestor many generations ago, but I no longer do.

But just about everything in this thread is rumor and speculation, right?

[Dora]

79. The inbreeding idea is BS, but the implications are relevant.

These people think they are royalty and they act like it. I'm pretty comfortable asserting that young Babs and George's families approved of their pairing because their bloodlines were so pure, and the fact that they are distant cousins clinched the deal.

[noamnety]

94. Stereotypes are rarely productive

Cousin marriages are not a "royalty" thing any more than they are a redneck thing, or a southern thing or a _________ thing. They cross all economic and ethnic groups.

Throughout history, the MAJORITY of marriages have been between first cousins.

[Dora]

97. My post was referencing a specific relationship.

I made an assertion about George and Barbara Bush and their bloodline. As well, I think my assertion is plausible.

I do not understand what I said to cause your feelings of offense.:shrug:

[Lucy - Claire]

84. This is a woman that....

wore light grey at Ronald Reagan's funeral, which stuck up like a sore thumb amongst the black.
She is a horrible woman and somewhere she broke her son's heart. And as terrible as it is, I think Robin Bush had the lucky escape.

[undergroundpanther]

86. A messed up childhood touches many people

And ALL of us DO NOT become like BUSH. There is ANOTHER factor to be accounted for Bush was not a kid with a conscience.Sociopath symptoms can start as young as two years old.

If you BELIEVE the cycle of violence is true,than why don't ALL abused kids become abusers as adults than?

.. And this cycle of violence routine is is NOT 100% true.

The Majority of abused kids do not grow up to abuse people as adults. It's because they HAVE a Conscience and can feel empathy is why they don't abuse or identify with the abuser.

A sociopath kid who gets abused still seeks power over others regardless. A sociopath kid learns abuse equals power . So they grow up to abuse others whether they've been victimized as kids or NOT.That is something to consider ,especially when 1 in 4 people have some sort of anti social type personality problem.

The sociopath factor IMO is the biggest deciding factor to whether an abused kid becomes an abusive adult. Think about it.

Bush was a sociopath long before his family abused him.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

88. You may have something there. I tend to agree more with another poster

here: Dubya's enormous family wealth has kept him in a bubble all his life.

Where would we all be if we--

--were assured by legacy of Yale and Harvard degrees, no matter how stupid or lazy;

--never had to get a real job;

--had the head of the CIA (Dad) ready and willing to get us out of any scrape (like the illegal Harken oil stock sale "investigated" by the SEC)?

IMO Dubya has always been rich and powerful enough to make his own alternate world, and foolish enough to believe it was reality. But who's going to put him in "timeout" now?