Democrat shrink takes unflattering look into depths of Bush

[emad]

Snip

Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday June 22, 2004
The Guardian

"I don't spend a lot of time trying to figure me out," George Bush once said. "I'm just not into psychobabble." The president will not need a shrink, then, to tell him he is unlikely to enjoy Bush on the Couch, a new book by a Washington psychiatrist and Democrat, who tries to explain his subject's quirks and policies by examining his personal history, and comes up with some unflattering conclusions.

Justin Frank, a clinical professor of psychiatry at George Washington University, argues that the president's inclination to see the world in black-and-white, good-versus-evil terms, and his tendency to repeat favourite words and phrases under pressure, are not simply politics as usual, but classic symptoms of untreated alcoholism.

Mr Bush was a heavy drinker from his youth but stopped at 40, becoming a born-again Christian. But Professor Frank, who has never met the president, argues he never treated the underlying cause of his alcohol dependence.

"He reminded me of my more disturbed patients," the psychiatrist said. "Being on the wagon is not the same thing as having alcoholism treated. That means taking responsibility, and making amends to the people you've damaged. Bush switched from alcoholism to religion. It takes responsibility out of his hands. Being born again is a way of denying the past," Prof Frank said.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1244400,00.html

Not the ONLY democrat shrink to state publicly that a dry drunk in the white house is in denial of his terrorist past.....

[Jmeyers130]

1. Shrubya...

take on responsibility...

that'll be the friggin day

[aden_nak]

2. Bah.

President Bush takes responsibility all the time! Though, often it's for the success of others. Or sometimes for successes that didn't even take place. Oh! And occasionally he takes responsibility for when something works despite his best efforts to destroy it. He's the Responsibility President. ;)

[emad]

3. Shrink's advice:

"Prof Frank's prescription is for Mr Bush to join an Alcoholics Anonymous programme - and for him to be relieved of his high-pressure job."