Beneath the media roar over the Miers nomination and the upcoming Libby/Hadley/Cheney/Rove/Feith/Frum/Max Boot indictment, a minimum of ink has been devoted to something that is even more potentially troubling: Bush's strange behavior. White House insiders have described a president behaving like Nixon during Watergate, barking profanities, saying very bad things about supposed enemies and otherwise acting gracelessly to nearly everyone. In the spirit of fairness, Bush's professional antagonists, Molly Ivans among them, have chalked it up to simple childishness. But the tone is changing. An October 11 interview with NBCs Matt Lauer showed a president seemingly unable to compose his thoughts in a timely manner, one who was subject to tics and pauses and all sorts of potentially dysfunctional behavior.
The WaPo's Dana Milbank ignored what was said and instead catalogued the number of Bush tics, blinks and extended pauses that took place during the interview. The title of the piece allowed the president an out---"For President Under Duress, Body Language Speaks Volumes" (WaPoOct 12)i.e, all that fidgety behavior was due to stress. Still, I would bet money that someone in the WaPo is familiar with authors (and physicians) Jeffrey Cummings and D. Frank Benson--and are poring over their 1992 book right this minute.
After reading Joe Klein's recent Bush article in Time (and discussed at length in Doug Thompson's Capitol Hill Blue), I'd be willing to bet that Time has a copy of the Cummings/Benson book as well---or one covering the same territory. Because, in his article, Klein seems to dismiss stress and suggests something deeper--pushing the envelope with a flurry of code words that imply a physiological rather than psychological problem.
"Turf wars, temper tantrums, mysterious leaks--has Bush lost control of his own government?"
"The President's rut reflects a gathering dysfunction in his Administration...the White House seems paralyzed."
"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.
Now, Klein is an accomplished and skillful writer, and one who chooses his words carefully. I believe the article was written as a clear warning to the administration that unless someone there explain Bush's behavior, then readers should expect to see words like "neurological" appear in future columns. I would also not be surprised if someone with the administration hasn't already talked with Klein about his column.
In the event that there truly is something physiologically wrong with this president, it would be a tragedy as well as a significant political and security problem.
But it could possibly explain some of the president's past behavior, including his requirement that he testify in tandem with the vice president and his ever-increasing use of the "extended, reflective pause." It might explain his extended stays at his remote farmhouse west of Waco, well away from the public.
In this scenario, then there would be those in the administration, in Congress and possibly in the media who are aware of the problem, but have agreed to secrecy. Interestingly, they are likely some of the same individuals under scrutiny for the Plame leak, i.e. Rove and Cheney.
Thus, if Bush has a serious physiological problem, a possible side effect of the Fitzgerald investigation would be that such information would become public knowledge. If the Plame case is allowed to go forward (barring a national-security-inspired replay of Nixon's "Saturday night massacre"), it may eventually reveal more about George W. Bush and his administration than we could have imagined.