Maybe I should have put this in GD. I guess I put it in the Pit because I thought it might be a volatile topic, but I think what I’m really interested in is a discussion of the per se plausibility of the suggestion that Bush could be motivated to any degree by his addiction disorder.
Before anyone says it, I know the thread title is provocative. I sort of meant it to be tongue in cheek when I wrote it but it came off looking more nutty than clever. Sorry about that. Just a little John Kerry Syndrome.
I don’t see Bush’s actions as addictive behavior, just stupid and wrong and self-serving. And possibly some of it as an attempt to show up his father. What’s he done as president that looks like addictive behavior?
Brilliant.
What you may be missing is that the statement itself is irrelevant. It might be true, it might not; the statement is being made by a guy in hiding who is the sworn enemy of Bush. His credibility isn’t especially high. Your credibility (such as it was) has taken a major hit as well. You’re willing to cull anti-Bush statements of questionable veracity from people motivated to denigrate him? At this point, you’ve become so tiresomely predictable that I can’t even summon surprise that you would sink to this level. You’re starting to sound like an addict who needs more and more drugs to reach his “high”. What next? You find a statement by Hitler in which he says Bush’s grandpa Prescott was a passable singer?
If you want to shock us at this point, find something positive that someone somewhere has said about Bush and agree with it.
You didn’t read your whole cite:
We don’t know if Bush was “addicted” to alcohol in the sense that this doctor is using the term, and he warns about people like you who use the term spuriously:
You are not a doctor and you don’t have access to a medical diagnosis of Bush.
No, because the charge is spurious independently of the guy being a terrorist. He has never even met Bush and is therefore unqualified, as you are, to diagnose him.
Denial, risk-taking and thrill-seeking are all hallmarks of addiction. So is lying. I already mentioned the figurative “chasing of losses” as gambling behavior.
Mr. Bush has always scrupulously obeyed the speed limit of the Universe.
That was in response to post #25.
What does “credibility” have to do with it? The fact that Bush is an addict is already known. The question of whether that has contributed to his behavior in Iraq may still be open, but the answer to that question does not rest on the credibility of anyone making the suggestion.
I don’t think a President’s personal foibles are all that important. If a person can run the country well, they can do hookers and blow every night for all I care. Clinton was a decent president, for all his relentless womanizing. U.S. Grant won the Civil war in a drunken stupor. Obviously if a president’s vices start interfering with his job, they become a matter of public interest. If they don’t, then they don’t.
I think it’s a mistake to conflate “gambling” meaning wagering money on games of chance with “gambling” meaning taking risks in running a country. Every President is going to take some serious risks at some point, and sometimes they don’t work out. Carter took a huge risk with Desert One (The hostage rescue operation), and lost miserably. Had the mission worked he’d have been remembered as a hero and probably won a second term. That’s an extreme example, but every policy decision is a “gamble” in the sense that it’s a move based on imperfect knowledge that may harm the country if it doesn’t work.
By his own admission Bush drank heavily, but he seems to have stopped. I don’t know of any evidence that he’s a compulsive gambler in the sense of wagering on Horses or blackjack.
There is no genuine question that Bush is an alcoholic. You’re grasping at straws.
In that case, it’s a non-sequitur. The fact that he is a terrorist is irrelevant to his claim.
It’s possible to apply what is known about the predictable behavior of addicts and ask whether a specific known addict is following that pattern.
I think Clinton was probably a sex addict, for what it’s worth.
It’s not the particular game that makes someone an addictive gambler. It’s the reward intiated by risk-taking. Sure, every president has to take some risks, but they don’t have to take unnecessary risks and they don’t have to chase losses. Bush is gambling with lives instead of money, but he’s still gambling.
There are plenty of questions, and you are not qualified to make the diagnosis.
No, but it’s relevant when determining if you should be pitting yourself for agreeing with him on the flimsiest of evidence.
You don’t know squat about Bush’s behavior or his motivations.
Okay, then, I’ll just adopt the position that you and credibility are mutually antagonistic, intersecting only on rare occasions. It’ll save time.
Dude, by his own admission, he was a heavy, daily drinker for more than 20 years. He once admitted in a New York Times interview that he couldn’t remember having gone a day without drinking from the time he was at prep school (when he was still underaged) until he quit drinking (allegedly) on his 40th birthday. His drinking caused problems in his personal life, got him arrested, and hurt his reputation. That’s an alcoholic, dude, no matter how much it may annoy you to concede it.
If that’s not enough, here’s an article by someone who IS an expert, who concludes that Bush shows every clinical indication of an alcoholic in recovery.
His behavior is in all the papers, dude.
But there is plenty of literature about predictable behavior in people with addiction disorders, and it’s no stretch at all to compare KNOWN behavior with a KNOWN addictive history and ask whether the behavior fits addictive motivations.
Bush is a failed business man trying to buy oil reserves. Currency is blood and American treasure. We are now teetering on whether the price can be met. He raises the stakes but no one is selling. His business lack of talent projected into political lack of talent. Getting Iraqi oil would be a great prize but we may not be able to hang onto it much longer.
It is not a gamble. It is a business deal gone bad.Like a junkie who tries to rip off his provider. It is dark, dirty dangerous business and can only have a horrible end.
Zawahiri is after all a medical doctor. Surely he’s as qualified to diagnose Bush from a distance as senator Bill Frist was qualified to diagnose Terry Schiavo from a videotape.
Surely.
No, it is not.
From the NIAAA FAQs page (emphasis added):
You have not demonstrated that Bush exhibited even one of those four symptoms.
Anyone who would offer a diagnosis from afar is a quack, including you.