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More Evidence that Bush Is a "Dry Drunk"?
History News Network ^ | jan 28, 2004 | Katherine Van Wormer

Posted on 01/28/2004 12:46:50 PM PST by wildbill

More Evidence that Bush Is a "Dry Drunk"? By Katherine van Wormer Ms. van Wormer is a Professor of Social Work at the University of Northern Iowa and co-author of Addiction Treatment: A Strengths Perspective.

Paul O’Neill’s revelations, the primary source for Ron Suskind’s book The Price of Loyalty concerning the timing of George W Bush’s plans to overthrow Saddam in Iraq should have come as no surprise. The ostensible reasons for going to war -- the claimed link between Iraq and al-Queda and the claimed possession of weapons of mass destruction -- have been shown to be without substance. The typical explanation offered by the mainstream press and political pundits was that September 11 was a turning point.

What September 11 did was provide the justification. “From the start,” said Paul O’Neill in his book interview, “we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out and change Iraq into a new country…It was about finding a way to do it that was the tone of it…the president saying, ‘Fine. Go find me a way to do this.’ And how would O’Neill know? O’Neill, as Secretary of the Treasury also sat on the National Security Council.

Even though, under pressure, while O’Neill has tried to tone down his statements, the mass media have continued to highlight the revelations. Missing from all the recent analyses and editorials, however, is any attention to the reason why: Why did Bush have this thing about Saddam? Why the “detour into an unnecessary war in Iraq?” as the U.S.Army War College recently put it.

“He tried to kill my Dad,” the President once explained. But I believe there was more to this unnecessary war than that. I believe there was a method in Bush’s madness, a method that most likely had as little to do with oil as it did to terrorism. For the answer we need to look deeply in the psyche of the man (inferred from his biography).

Earlier several other writers and I likened Bush’s personality characteristics to those of a person who, in AA parlance, is “dry” but whose thinking is not really sober. Grandiosity, rigidity, and intolerance of ambiguity, and a tendency to obsess about things are among the traits associated with the dry drunk. The dry drunk quits drinking, but his or her obsession with the bottle is often replaced with other obsessions. Twelve Step programs help their members modify their all-or-nothing thought patterns which associated with the disease alcoholism. “Easy does it” and “One day at a time” are among the slogans; the serenity prayer, similarly, helps persons with addictive tendencies to curb the tendency to excess.

In Bush’s irrational patterns of thought lie the clues to his single-minded obsession with Iraq. For the explanation for Bush’s vendetta against this one country, we have to look to his biography and to the meaning that Iraq held for his father.

The father-son relationship can be problematic in any family. When the father is considered a big hero, the first-born son, especially one bearing the father’s name, identity issues are common. As any chronology of George W Bush’s childhood will show, the son was set up to follow in the exact footsteps of his father. Sent away to the very New England prep school where his father’s accomplishments were still remembered, the younger Bush became better known for his pranks than athletic or academic achievements. His drinking bouts caused problems during his military service as well. (Remember that his father had been a war hero.) In college there was heavy drinking and other drug misuse, one arrest for a wild college prank and one conviction for drunken driving.

A much later religious conversion turned his life around. George W. Bush’s father set him up in business, and his father’s presidency helped him get his start in politics. His father, for all his success, experienced failure on three occasions. He was widely criticized for not finishing the job in Iraq-- for not moving the troops in to “take out” Saddam following the Gulf War victory--and he failed to get his bill to fund a NASA flight to Mars, and finally, he lost his bid for re-election.

What a unique opportunity has fallen George W Bush’s way. The prodigal son can not only prove himself to his father but he can show up his father at his own game. Remember that for his cabinet and key advisers, he chose some of the same men from his father’s regime. He chose people, furthermore, who would be favorable to a return campaign, “a crusade” against Iraq. Given his past history and tendency toward obsessiveness, the temptation to achieve heroism through a re-enactment of his father’s war clearly would have been too much for George Bush Jr. to resist.

To accomplish his mission he would have to throw caution and international diplomacy to the winds, lie convincingly to the American people, threaten allies, bully members of the United Nations, but in the end he would be able to dress in full military regalia and declare “mission accomplished.”

The fact that the targeting of Iraq had become one man’s personal crusade even seemed somewhat extreme to the father who was indirectly responsible. Yes, the man who knows George W. best, the person most familiar with his rashness of thought, indirectly sent him a message. In a speech at Tufts University, George Bush Sr. emphasized the need for the U.S. to maintain close ties with Europe and the UN. “You’ve got to reach out to the other person,” he advised.

More recently, Bush has raised an unprecedented amount of money for his re-election campaign. And his grandiose (and much ridiculed) plans to launch rockets to Mars (and the moon) could have been predicted. The method in his madness is clear once you understand the pattern. Whether the majority of the American people will ever see the light remains to be seen. The starting point may be Paul O’Neill’s revelations, because one is then to prone to ask the question, Why?


TOPICS: Government
KEYWORDS: beyeitch; bushhater; bushhaters; clintonwasacokehead; idiotlogic; liberalgarbage; personalattack; psychobabble; psychodumbo; smearcampaign
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To: wildbill
Have any of you read 'The Faith of George W. Bush'? It doesn't deal much on what he believes but more on how he came to be the man he is because of what he believes.

41 posted on 01/28/2004 1:13:10 PM PST by Krodg
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To: MEG33
it's isn't...it's some communist front called the "History News network"...and the professor works at the People's Democratic Republic of Northern Iowa.
42 posted on 01/28/2004 1:15:29 PM PST by Keith (IT'S ABOUT THE JUDGES)
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To: wildbill
I got half way through this B.S. and decided I needed a drink.
43 posted on 01/28/2004 1:15:34 PM PST by NeoCaveman (Kerry replaces Pelosi as the botox babe of the Democrat Party)
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To: wildbill
The dry drunk quits drinking, but his or her obsession with the bottle is often replaced with other obsessions. Twelve Step programs help their members modify their all-or-nothing thought patterns which associated with the disease alcoholism.

Actually, For people drinking from compulsion (which is not all heavy drinkers, contrary to modern diseasism) AA replaces alcohol with a healthier, yet just as dependent addiction to AA.

44 posted on 01/28/2004 1:15:53 PM PST by HairOfTheDog
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To: wildbill
That was pitiful. To ignore the facts of 9/11 that were a driving force in this war on terrorism and to indicate that Bush is simply trying to 'please daddy' is unconscienable (sp?). It makes me sick that these people force their sick opinions and try to call it historical documentation.
45 posted on 01/28/2004 1:16:21 PM PST by Abynormal
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To: wildbill
Ah yes, the open minded University environment flowers again. This is the junk science and flaming propaganda that is being indoctrinated into many a young mind full of mush college student. At $300 per credit!

I ruminate over ideas about liberating the more stench filled toilets of campuses (such as where this neo-Stalinist vermin teaches) but have yet failed to come up with ideas. Any sugggestions?

46 posted on 01/28/2004 1:18:24 PM PST by FormerACLUmember (Man rises to greatness if greatness is expected of him)
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To: HairOfTheDog
I've been through 12 steps for substance abuse. Haven't been to a meeting since 1993, which, incidentally was when I stopped using bad stuff. Some folk go to AA, stop drinking and move on. Others do just what you said.
47 posted on 01/28/2004 1:19:32 PM PST by GSWarrior
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To: wildbill
a Google of Ms. Van Worner yields she's written:

Social Work with Lesbians, Gays, and Bisexuals: A Strengths Perspective

Restorative Justice and Social Work By Katherine van Wormer, MSSW, PhD

This quote from the latter is instructive about Ms. Warner:

Before I became a social worker, I spent a lot of time around the courts. As an instructor of criminal justice, I studied the adversary system and played a limited role in helping defense attorneys with jury selection. Much of what I learned about justice in the United States—the plea bargaining, the guilty released on minor technicalities, the “one-size-fits-all” harsh sentencing, the win-or-lose mentality—was disillusioning. Books such as Karl Menninger’s The Crime of Punishment, Howard Zehr’s Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and Justice, and Jeffrey Reiman’s The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice provide compelling critiques of the standard, Anglo-Saxon form of justice.

48 posted on 01/28/2004 1:19:44 PM PST by prairiebreeze (WMD's in Iraq -- The absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.)
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To: prairiebreeze
It also reveals her web page at UNI

Have at it:

http://www.uni.edu/vanworme/

Contact

vanwormer@uni.edu
Katherine Van Wormer Ph.D.,MSSW
Professor of Social Work
University of Northern Iowa
Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0405. 319-273-6379

49 posted on 01/28/2004 1:21:18 PM PST by tx_eggman
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To: wildbill
By Katherine van Wormer

Over-educated, Liberal and Stupid is no way to go through life, lady.

50 posted on 01/28/2004 1:23:47 PM PST by freedumb2003 (Peace through Strength)
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To: freedumb2003
Dean Wormer's wife? We know all about her..
51 posted on 01/28/2004 1:25:24 PM PST by cottonseed
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To: GSWarrior
I am sick of the "dry drunk" comments too (what ever that means).

I am also sick of "Bush is a liar" comments. I just flew off the handle at my favorite niece for sending me some kind of garbage about President Bush being a liar.

I told her that if she sent me any more 'crap" like that she could just drop me off her e-mail list. I haven't heard back from her today, she may be still reeling from my angry comments.
52 posted on 01/28/2004 1:26:08 PM PST by Ditter
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To: cwboelter
Well said!I remember ...
53 posted on 01/28/2004 1:26:35 PM PST by MEG33 (America will never seek a permission slip to provide for the security of our country)
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To: GSWarrior
I am glad for you that you used it to help you switch tracks, and also that you could eventually move on without it. I suppose it isn't particularly harmful (relative to the alternative) when folk stay in it for years as some do... but I can't help thinking that after awhile, it is keeping them a slave to their substance-abuse long after they could have been free of it.
54 posted on 01/28/2004 1:26:44 PM PST by HairOfTheDog
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To: wildbill
For the answer we need to look deeply in the psyche of the man (inferred from his biography).

To me, here is where the author, a 'dr' loses a lot of credibility. She should know that she can't make a meaningful diagnosis based on such limited information, and without meeting and working with the person in question.

She knew better and she didn't care. So much for the author.

55 posted on 01/28/2004 1:27:24 PM PST by HitmanLV (I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.)
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To: wildbill
Katherine Van Wormer?

56 posted on 01/28/2004 1:27:40 PM PST by evets (APPLAUSE)
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To: wildbill
Bizarre. I can't think of a President in my lifetime who has shown more self-control and politeness to his enemies than G. W. Bush, unless maybe it was Ronald Reagan. If the shoe fits, wear it. Only an out-to-lunch, left-wing kook could imagine that this shoe fits GWB.

If you want to think of presidents who might go over the edge with vindictiveness, my list would include LBJ, clinton, and maybe JFK or his brother RFK who did some of his dirty work.
57 posted on 01/28/2004 1:29:19 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: wildbill
Oh, please. This author is just another Bush-hater.

58 posted on 01/28/2004 1:29:44 PM PST by pax_et_bonum (Always finish what you st)
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To: johnnyp16
in other words, she is pissed off because with a Phd and an MSSW shes still only making 35K per year....LOL
59 posted on 01/28/2004 1:30:00 PM PST by Capt.YankeeMike (get outta my pocket, outta my car, and outta the schools)
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To: FairOpinion
Afraid of a little bit of debate & discourse & a difference of opinion? Sheesh, run to the Admin Moderator at the slightest provocation!
60 posted on 01/28/2004 1:30:18 PM PST by my_pointy_head_is_sharp
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