New Bush pic from Raw Story today, 7/31

[MissWaverly]

Your thoughts, caption reads Bush stumbles getting out of Air Force One

[NMDemDist2]

1. everyone stumbles now and then

this guy makes a career of it.

unfortunately most of his stumbles are not with his feet :banghead:

[MissWaverly]

2. that's true but he looks drunk to me in this picture

My dad was an alcoholic when he got older, I can tell when someone has been drinking.

[NMDemDist2]

3. I am an old drunk (in recovery thank Heaven) and he looks drunk

or stoned half the time to me and hung over the other half :shrug:

[MissWaverly]

5. thanks for the insight

I am glad you made it to recovery.

[Cleita]

18. I agree. I'm an ex-bartender and he shows

all the visible signs of drinking or being hung over. I would love to talk to anyone who has to be close enough to him to smell his breath. Even Vodka smells and if you have a lot, it stinks like any other booze.

[MissWaverly]

19. It's a miracle he didn't fall down the steps

When I first starting traveling by air, all the planes had steps like that, I was never very
comfortable on them. Clieta, I did notice that he had a beer bottle next to his plate when
he had lunch with Putin.

[Cleita]

25. Yes, it seems like he was keeping his glow on.

He probably had beer for breakfast to do the hair of the dog thing.

I knew people who actually functioned by drinking all day. One of my clientele was a teacher who came in the morning for a heart starter, then came in at lunch for beer and when she finished her day was able to go on to something stronger. The she went home and from what I understand from friends drank until she went to bed and then started it all over again the next day.

She never seemed drunk or compromised though. :shrug: However it showed up in other ways. Her house was a dirty pigsty or so I heard from people who knew her. Her little boy fed himself. She went to the market and left the food on the counter. If someone didn't put it away for her like a friend or the kid it just rotted on the counter.

[MissWaverly]

39. My sister's in-laws were both alcoholics

they never appeared "drunk" but they would bring over "orange juice" laced with vodka for
breakfast, their "fresh squeezed" oj.

[SheilaT]

79. I've read that really

serious alcoholics get so they cannot function without alcohol in their bloodstream. Drinking all day as you described is exactly that kind of thing. It's possible that Bush, having been an alcoholic in his youth, and having supposedly gotten sober, resumed drinking sometime after he became "president" and is now at that steady level of alcohol consumption.

There's another thread discussing whether a particular blood alcohol level truly indicates impairment (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1804450) which is worth a read. Certainly, one's subjective sense of being impaired is not always the best measure. And if W started with a cocktail at dinner, then a beer or two watching a football game, because he'd been an alcoholic in earlier years, he may not have felt a buzz, and so thought it okay to have one more, or two more. Perhaps by now he's drinking fairly steadily, cannot recognize that he actually does have a buzz on most of the time (because by now it feels normal) but of course he is impaired. And it shows.

There are many times when it appears to me as if he's drunk, and so it's especially interesting to hear from a professional bar-tender about this.

[NMDemDist2]

34. it oozes out of your pores

I remember one day in early sobriety I stood next to my boss after a night out and could smell the booze and I know he was a vodka drinker

[MissWaverly]

42. Yes, I know, I can't stand the smell of Jim Beam

after my Dad, it was his favorite bottle.

[SheilaT]

78. I've noticed that it doesn't

take a lot of vodka to show up on the breath. The first drink is enough. It's just that it's not as strong and distinctive an odor as beer, or wine, or whiskey. But anyone who drinks vodka on the theory that it can't be smelled is in serious denial.

I drink vodka and gin because I like them, not because I care if anyone can smell it on me. But I do assume that if I've had as much as one drink that others can tell.

[Grateful for Hope]

4. My immediate reaction

"God, he looks drunk". Then I read your post -- looks like we are in agreement.

[MissWaverly]

6. You must have read my mind

Play the psychic music please!

[Grateful for Hope]

14. LOL! n/t

[Delphinus]

9. I don't want to laugh at his tripping,

as Goddess knows I'm not always a graceful person myself. :) But, he does look drunk in those photos. I happened to see a short snippet, must have been last night, when he got off a helicopter and, man, he looked trashed in that film too!

[MissWaverly]

10. I do feel sorry for him because he operates on his gut

His gut must tell him that the neocon plan for Lebanon flopped big time.

[Grateful for Hope]

13. I admit it

I "snickered".

:7

[MissWaverly]

16. well, it is funny and terribly sad at the same time

[Grateful for Hope]

29. You are, of course, right

it is sad also. It tells me that he is so uncomfortable with himself that he needs to self-medicate (often?).

[MissWaverly]

40. the sad thing is how aware is he if he's on a buzz

it explains a great deal about his reaction time in past crisis, there always has to be a
sober up time with an alcoholic.

[cassiepriam]

52. Bingo. I believe that is a very good explanation of why

we see such strange non responses. Takes several days
for any reaction. Like Cheney and the shooting, he had to sober
up before the police were called in.

There should not be so much power in the hands of one or two men.
As we can see, if they are impaired we are in real trouble in
an emergency.

[MissWaverly]

54. yes, emergencies never happen from 9 to 5

It's always Friday night at 2:00 am or Easter Sunday or Christmas eve, kind of hard to
sober up in the middle of a bender.

[cassiepriam]

57. And we know Bush insists that he is the center of the universe.

Remember the times he has refused to attend meetings
when in foreign countries because they interfered with his
bedtime. And even on the night of 9/11, he made sure he
was in bed at his usual time.

I wonder how his aides must feel when there is a
national emergency and the president is drunk out of his
mind. I guess they are used to it by now. The less they tell
Bush the easier it is for them.

[MissWaverly]

64. Yes, I know

and I think how those poor people stood in their attics slowly drowning with no help after
Katrina hit, why has no one been held accountable?

[cassiepriam]

67. They are still finding remains in some of the houses in N.O.

I wonder how history will judge all of this?

Oh they are going after some of the docs in NO who made
the best decisions they could under the circumstances. I guess
that is going to the be extent of the consequences. Sending the
doctors who were down in the trenches to prison.

While Bush goes off into a luxurious retirement.
Sounds fair to me. (not)

[MissWaverly]

69. What choice did those doctors have really

the critically ill were dependent on those machines to live and they were losing power, there
was no way to evacuate them, what options were really left to those people. Remember FEMA had
qualified docs mopping floors while people died from diabetic shock because they were afraid
of lawsuits.

[cassiepriam]

70. The docs were in a no win situation. The alternative was to

watch patients die a horrible painful death in some cases. I cannot imagine trying to make those kinds of decisions.

And yes other docs were horrified to watch people die right in in front of them because they were ordered not to assist anyone.

Seems to me that someone at FEMA might have cleared up the issue of legal liability before an emergency. Certainly the idea of a physician helping an injured person in a disaster isn't a novel or unique concept.

[MissWaverly]

72. yes, indeed, esp. when they had volunteered for that purpose

[MissWaverly]

80. It's always the little people at the bottom that get stomped

They are the ones pressured to step up the questionning, they are the ones that are told it's not torture unless it results in organ failure or they're the ones left in a slowly
flooding hospital, with those who can only live with the help of machines whose power is slowly
ebbing away. Yet, the big Kahuna, who says there were WMD's, biological and chemical weapons
that didn't exist and leads us into a bloody and hopeless war goes on to the bbq.

[crikkett]

75. ouch!!!

I felt the anger in your all-too-true statement. Palpably.

Blessings on New Orleans, and the people of New Orleans, and the people who care about them, and on you, MissWaverly. What a magnificent place that was, and those people were so abused, and people who tried to help were stopped. While we all watched. Unbeleivable. May the victims see justice done and may their children know peace.

[MissWaverly]

81. Thanks Crikkett

for the kind words, one night someone here at DU said that we treated New Orleans like a third
world country and someone replied that they were from a third world country and her people
respect the dead. We have to get back to a society like we have at DU that cares about people
not shiny kill ratio bombs. I am sure that America is full of people who are not afraid of hard
work or creating something new. If we all put our heads together; we could solve a lot of these
problems.

:-)

[Why Syzygy]

7. Where is his

zookeeper, Rover, these days?

In the photo, definitely trashed. Who knows on what.

[MissWaverly]

8. don't know I did a google search nothing for this week

Could he be on vacation, I remember during Katrina most of the staff were on vacations

[BlueIris]

11. Could he BE more clueless? Probably if he were unconscious.

If I were that out of it, I would be lying down somewhere.

[MissWaverly]

15. I think the GOP should ask him to resign

He is polling at less than Nixon when he was impeached. All they have to do is open up some
of that mountain of evidence that they have been sitting on for the last six years and confront
him with it. There does not have to be a trial; they can just do it quietly.

[cassiepriam]

32. Maybe they are the ones who keep putting cases of booze on AF One,

knowing he has to walk down those long steep flight of steps.
Bad Bad GOP.

[MissWaverly]

41. well, I wish they would deal instead of denial

I know from my Dad, that everyone wants to ignore alcoholism, it easier just to get the booze
and ignore what is going on.

[cassiepriam]

47. Bush is much easier to manage when he is drunk.

But certainly his drinking is much more frequent and heavy
at this point in time. I have not seen him sober much in the
past year.

[MissWaverly]

49. yes, he is drinking more now I think

[cassiepriam]

50. self delete

sorry dup post

[crikkett]

76. "Bad Bad GOP"

:rofl:

[BlueIris]

37. EXACTLY. This is what I have been begging them to do for a year.

Psychically, I focus the most on McCain. He is the key. He is basically the only person they can conceivably run for president next time if they want to dump the neo-cons, and he is also the only person who can lead their floundering flock of talking heads after the Bush/Cheney amoeba is removed. It has been my feeling (psychic, intuitive, and rational) that the reason Hastert, et al, have not taken action is basically that McCain is still dicking around with his "options." He hasn't decided how best to frame himself immediately before, during and after the impending impeachment/resignation crisis, because he can't decide what kind of position (against Bush, supportive of him, neutral, whatever) will be best for his campaign in '08. The sense that I am getting is that he is the one they're waiting on and he keeps telling them to fuck off while he decides how best to angle his role in this. It almost seems like he enjoys making them squirm. Which is...I can't tell you how many times I've posted on this site that McCain just needs to get ON with it. He will get the backing of conservative voters no matter what he does. He will be regarded favorably by history no matter what. A survivable fate for the world is what he is jeopardizing by giving in to his fear of finally stepping up and taking control of the direction of his party (mixed in with a little bit of desire for revenge and conflicted emotions about how his actions will be viewed by the military folk still at war) and conservative America. I can't tell you how many times I've posted things like, "Senator McCain? Could you get serious, please? I'm kinda sweating over here."

[MissWaverly]

43. If that's what you are picking up, I will send good vibes his way

this situation is creeping me out in a major way, we could use a return to normalcy,
I just have a feeling that this current crew is totally out of control.

[NMDemDist2]

12. does Viagra make you stumble?

he is having dinner with the Kindasleeza tonight

:evilgrin:

[MissWaverly]

17. Nope, I think its booze & the extreme heat

My dad had two beers and went outside in the heat and fainted and broke his hip. I think they
say that beer does not cool you off in hot weather.

[Cleita]

20. Alcohol actually heats you up.

A cold beer in the shade after cooling down and rehydrating with plain water might be refreshing, but I don't recommend using it for hydration and cooling down.

[MissWaverly]

22. well, I definitely would not drink and go out in the heat

Remember when Bush went to the funeral of Coretta King, I thought he was drunk that day.

[Cleita]

28. I don't think he's been sober very often the whole time he's

been President, but now he's getting really careless. There have been one or two times that he spoke in public and was actually coherent. That made me believe more than ever that he's snockered most of the time and those few times he had been sobered up for the occasion.

[MissWaverly]

44. Yes, I think so too

His behavior at the last inauguration gave me the creepy creeps, it was like listening to
my dad with his "fire in the sky" talk.

[cassiepriam]

24. Viagra does not make you stumble unless you wash it down w/ Jim Beam.

Too funny AZ.

[cassiepriam]

21. When was the last time we saw him sober?

He was intoxicated for most of the G8 session.

[MissWaverly]

23. it's hard to tell

I do think he was drunk at the G-8 conference but sometimes I just think he is heavily medicated.

[cassiepriam]

31. I think he looked hyper at the G8.

Too manic to be on major downers. He looked more like he was on booze, maybe some minor tranquilizers. He may be doing coke again too, and I do not mean the beverage.

He is getting more and more out of control, hands on the women, making more ridiculous comments than usual, even for him.

He seems to be almost giddy a great deal of the time recently. At at times highly irritated and angry. He could be Bi Polar, and in a manic phase right now.

Maybe then they medicate him heavily, and so sometimes we see him looking like you are describing. Or maybe he is crashing and in a major depression.

Something very odd with his affect and behavior.

Edited to add: Have you noticed all the more recent weird
facial expressions he has been making? Looking like a buffoon with these very wide clownish grins and funny faces? I am telling you this man is either drunk or in a manic phase.

[MissWaverly]

45. there is one look of his that makes him look like a Disney

character, one of the 7 dwarfs, he just does, that's when he's got that silly happy, grin

[cassiepriam]

46. Yes he looks really goofy as he mugs to the camera to cover

his drunken mistakes.

[MissWaverly]

48. yes, and it is not presidential

I can't believe what I see on television, I have never seen a president act like this before,
never.

[cassiepriam]

51. At least most presidents can pretend to act presidential

Bush either is totally out of control or doesn't care.

[MissWaverly]

53. yes, I don't think that he does care

[cassiepriam]

58. He is the supreme narcissist that is for sure. Does not give a rat's

behind what others think about him.

[MissWaverly]

63. I think life to him is just an amusement park

he just runs from one fun ride to another only with him, he makes sure someone else pays.

[cassiepriam]

66. Yes, the eternal child, called the Puer Aeternus

The Eternal Boy
If a man has been compromised early in life by someone in a position of trust, maybe even a family member, it can cause him to be resentful, defensive, with a need to get even, or to escape. He may adopt a persona as a shield against trauma, and take on various affectations of being unavailable, such as the selfish macho man, or the overly effeminate man, or he may become obese, or somehow aloof or untouchable in some way. In a revolt against "the earthly, the conservative, the possessive, he may begin a long ascent into a flight upward and become the ascending son, the Peter Pan or "eternal boy," the moth "mad for the light."

[MissWaverly]

68. yes, good description

but the sad thing is how much of a pedestal that he's been placed on, they certainly never put
Clinton up on one.

[cassiepriam]

71. Clinton was hounded from the minute he took office.

That was really the beginning of the illegal takeover of our govt.

[MissWaverly]

73. I was thinking that too

the whole thing blown out of proportion by the media, that is when they took control of the
media in the Clinton years.

[crikkett]

77. Getting ready for a fight?

"He seems to be almost giddy a great deal of the time recently. At at times highly irritated and angry."

I'm editing out my first reaction, because I'm sure he's not a monster wiggling with delight at the suffering of others.

Was it last year? during the g8 when the london tubes got bombed on the very day that the US was going to be spanked by g8 over the kyoto protocol or global warming. Just before Katrina hit. I think I remember that. This year, Lebanon was the distraction and I don't know what we were about to get spanked over... Lebanon? Iran? Korea? Iraq? Global Warming?

The G8's attitude seems to rile the US. Which is why I think * was so animated at the meeting. I'm probably wrong.

[Pathwalker]

26. Link to LOTS more pics of his stumble here:

Yikes! I vote for drunk - again, and so soon after the last time.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1781906&mesg_id=1781906

[Why Syzygy]

35. That fourth one

looks just like my ex when he was drunk and looking for a fight. This guy needs some help.
Unfotunately, he'll never get it.

[hippiechick]

38. He looks totally sloshed!

:scared: Holy Chit! :wow:

[Ecumenist]

27. I wish he would just keep tilting

and fall headfirst down those stairs. Do the planet a favour.

[Cleita]

30. I think Rumsfeld is potted most of the time too.

Although he doesn't talk like Bush and sounds like he's thinking about what he's saying, his facial expressions and hanging on to the podium as well as the long pauses in strange places gives him away.

[NMDemDist2]

33. i think Rummy is just well

Rummy

and a touch of senile dementia

[rumpel]

36. one drink too many

or not seeing straight from damaged and permanently mis-wired brain electrodes- fear of falling

[marions ghost]

55. Although other substances may be present

I have to say that alcohol is my guess, judging by the recent aggressive behavior-- the arrogance, sloppiness, excess physicality, inappropriate remarks, overall FU attitude. I think they're letting him have it and covering up for him...easier that way. He doesn't have time for detox right now.

[cassiepriam]

59. I think he is mixing prescription meds with the booze,

and I am not ruling out the use of cocaine either. That was his old favorite.

I think his drugs of preference have been alcohol and cocaine.
Most drug users go back to their preferred drugs.

We know that the administration is hitting the Ambien very hard.
Colin Powell has admitted it in interviews. And Ambien can create every odd behavior in an individual and then no memory of events. Bush may not even recall what happened at the G8 summit. He may also be in an alcoholic blackout and have no memory of half the stuff he says or does.
And of course alcoholics are very good at consciously lying to cover their inappropriate behavior.

[marions ghost]

60. Good point about the Ambien

and I agree about the possibility of prescription drugs with booze. I don't think it's a secret within the administration. They are managing him, or the problem would be even more visible. "Wake Me When Its Over" is Chimpy's motto now. But then he never was really at the helm anyway. I have much sympathy for alcoholics. Life can be a very tough place for them. This would be sad if this administration hadn't done so much damage. You get numb to any concern about individual tragedies when you see such abuse of power and the havoc these damaged people wreak.

[cassiepriam]

61. Yes, most substance abusers do not have the power to blow up

the world. While it is a personal tragedy for Bush to be
so addicted and impaired, it is criminal that he is has the power
to hurt so many.

[marions ghost]

62. yeah --re power to blow up the world

I REALLY hope they've got a beeper on his collar...:scared: But then there are all those other characters right out of Dr Strangelove...:scared: and Congress so obviously compromised :scared: If I were Chimpy I'd drink too. At some level of his being he must know his ship has hit an iceberg...

[cassiepriam]

65. Yes, I very much believe that on some level he knows that the ship

is sinking. Yes, certainly could explain his continuous intoxicated condition.

[MissWaverly]

74. I think more and more are learning the truth and leaving

the coalition of the willing, and that includes the Saudis

[Quakerfriend]

56. OMG! He's such a boozer!

And, I know this is why he appears to have aged so much in the past couple of years.

(It certainly is not because he is worried about anything going on in the country or world!

[cassiepriam]

82. He is supposed to have had another "accident". Any pics

of him with any injuries?