Bush's "cognitive functioning" worries observers
by Andrew Stephen, The Observer [London, UK] Oct. 17, 2004

Excerpts...
....the momentous decision awaiting Americans is not whether they return to power a President who is uniquely qualified to protect the US against terrorism, as Cheney et al would have us believe. It is whether they re-elect a man who, it is now clear, has become palpably unstable. The evidence has been before our eyes for some time, but only during the course of this election campaign has it crystallized -- just in time, possibly, for the 2 November election. The 43rd US President has always had a much-publicized knack for mangled syntax, but now George Bush often searches an agonizingly long time, sometimes in vain, for the right words. His mind simply blanks out at crucial times. He is prone, I am told, to foul-mouthed temper tantrums in the White House. His handlers now rarely allow him to speak an unscripted word in public.

Indeed, there are now several confusing faces to the US President, and we saw three of them in the live, televised Presidential debates with John Kerry that culminated last Wednesday night in Tempe, Arizona. In the first debate on 30 September, watched by more than 62 million viewers, we saw Bush at his most unattractive: slouching, peevish, pouting, pursing his lips with disdain at what his opponent was saying. But he was unable to marshal any coherent arguments against Kerry and merely spewed out prepared talking points -- in what, even his ardent supporters concede, was Bush's worst-ever such performance.

In the second debate on 8 October in St Louis, Bush could not stay on his stool and leapt up to dispense what were -- certainly in contrast to Kerry's cogent recital of statistics and arguments -- frequently defensive, shouting rants. I assume that he was told by his handlers not to show displeasure at Kerry's words this time around, but, instead, he revealed his anger by blinking repeatedly. The moderator tried to stop him talking at one point (both campaign organizations had agreed the order in which the candidates could speak, with time limits imposed on both), but Bush insisted on riding roughshod over the briefly protesting moderator, Charles Gibson. (What, I wonder, would have happened if Gibson had kept to the rules and insisted that Bush stop talking? We will never know.)

By the time of the third debate on 13 October, this one witnessed by more than 50 million people, Bush had adopted yet another baffling persona. This time, he was peculiarly flushed, leading a colleague to speculate whether he was on something. He had clearly been told to look positive -- that was his main thrust of the evening, with frequent assertions that 'freedom is on the march' -- and spent the evening with a creepy, inane grin on his face, as though he was red-faced after a festive Christmas dinner.

So what is up with the US President, and why is this election so crucial not only for America but for the world? I have been examining videos of his first 1994 debate with Ann Richards, the Governor of Texas, who he was about to supplant, and of his 2000 debates with Al Gore. In his one and only debate with Richards a decade ago, Bush was fluent and disciplined; with Gore, he had lost some of that polish but was still articulate, with frequent invocations of his supposed 'compassionate conservatism'.

It is thus hard to avoid the conclusion that Bush's cognitive functioning is not, for some reason, what it once was. I am not qualified to say why this is so. It would not be surprising if he was under enormous stress, particularly after the 9/11 atrocities in 2001, and I gather this could explain much, if not everything. But I have heard wild speculation in Washington that he is suffering from a neurological disorder, or that the years of alcoholism might finally be taking their toll on his brain.

I think it unlikely that Bush was wearing a bug so that he could be fed lines in at least one of the debates, but it is indicative of how his capabilities are regarded these days that the suggestion that he needed advice is given credence, as well as passing mentions in the powerful Washington Post and New York Times. It does not help that Bush now lives in a positively Nixonian cocoon. He does not read newspapers; he sees television only to watch football; he makes election speeches exclusively at ticket-only events, and his courtiers consciously avoid giving him bad news. When he met John Kerry for their first bout on the debating platform, it was almost a new experience for the President to hear the voice of dissent.

A senior Republican, experienced and wise in the ways of Washington, told me last Friday that he does not necessarily accept that Bush is unstable, but what is clear, he added, is that he is now manifestly unfit to be President. This, too, is a view that is widely felt, but seldom articulated and then only in private, within the Republican as well as Democratic establishments in Washington. Either way, the choice voters make on Tuesday fortnight should be obvious: whether he is unstable or merely unfit to be President -- and I would argue that they amount to much the same -- he should speedily be turned out of office..........
Published by The Observer [London, UK]