Unknown News | The emperor wears no mental clothes

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Mental Health Moment: A weekly column by Helen & Harry Highwater

THE WEEK BEFORE

www.unknownnews.org/hh.html

THE WEEK AFTER

The emperor wears no mental clothes

by Helen & Harry Highwater, Unknown News

Oct. 11, 2005

I know it's masochistic, cruel and unusual self-abuse, but on a dare I watched another Bush press conference last week. And George Bush was, as usual, a gibbering baboon.

Bush always sounds like he's explaining complicated matters
to third-graders -- we the people -- but an average third-
grader has a keener grasp of the issues than does the
President. Your average drunk or mentally-vacant pan-
handler on the street downtown makes more sense. I get

stage fright easily and I don't do drugs, but criminy, I could be higher than the space shuttle on any three illegal drugs of your choice, and still answer questions on camera more coherently, more to the point than this man George W Bush.

Amidst the malapropisms and dingbattery that came from the President's increasingly-impaired mind, this exchange from last week's press conference seemed especially outer-space-worthy:

Reporter: A couple of weeks ago, you stood in the Rose Garden with Generals Abizaid and Casey and you cited the accomplishments regarding standing up of Iraqi troops there and said that there were 12 battalions that were working on Fallujah in the western part, 20 in Baghdad, 100 across the nation.

And that afternoon, Abizaid and Casey went up to Capitol Hill and said, Well, there's one battle-ready battalion, which led some Republican senators to say, Well, the situation is getting worse.

So, the questions is, sir: It appears that between what you said and what they said, something's not adding up here.

The President of the United States: Well, what is happening in Iraq is the following: More and more Iraqi are able to take the fight to the enemy.

And that's important to achieve our goal. And the goal is for a stable, democratic Iraq that is an ally in the war on terror.

Right now, there are over eighty army battalions fighting alongside coalition troops. When I say army battalions, Iraqi army battalions. There are over thirty Iraqi battalions in the lead. And that is substantial progress from the way the world was a year ago.

So, a few weeks ago this President said the Iraqis had 132 serviceable battalions. The day before, his Generals testified that the Iraqis had exactly one battalion ready. And Bush resolves the discrepancy by explaining that eighty, or thirty battalions are "in the lead" in Iraq.

Does anyone think the President of the United States even knows what a battalion is?

The next day, I searched through the mainstream coverage for the ever-obvious but never-stated fact that the President of the United States has lost his marbles if he ever had any.

But in the mainstream media, nobody reports what everybody knows, that the emperor wears no mental clothes. Instead they discuss Bush's initiatives as if he's proposed any initiatives, they analyze his strategy as if there's a strategy to analyze.

I'm not a psychiatrist, and cannot claim to know what's miswired inside the mind of the President of the United States. He may be insane, or delusional, or mentally ill. He may be certifiable, or merely psychotic. He may be drunk, or perpetually drugged to a stupor, or suffering from early Alzheimer's. He may be mildly retarded (and I suggest this seriously, certainly not as a joke).

Mr Bush may be dancing on moonbeams, sloshed on moonshine, or a victim of fetal alcohol syndrome due to his mother's endless alcoholism. Again, lacking the access and expertise to say which of these might actually be the case, I can only state the obvious: The President of the United States is seriously, seriously out of kilter.

One needn't be an expert to recognize that extremely obvious fact. It's not like there's any doubt, or any reasonable argument that Bush is mentally healthy.

Can there be an honest observer of the President, anywhere in the world, who dares claim that Bush is engaged and aware of his surroundings, and is making America's national policy decisions? Can anyone who's not a professional liar state that President Bush is there?

There's no 'there' there. Nobody's answering at roll call. The President's escalator doesn't go up, and his stairway is two or three planks short.

To be sure, I don't claim that any of this is a revelation -- it's amazingly obvious. I'm not saying anything here that isn't whispered and shouted by many millions of people every day. And the familiar follow-up question, asked by you and me and everyone we know, asked by Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, asked by Americans and foreigners everywhere on Earth:

Who's pulling the puppet President's strings?

Anyone who hasn't asked that question is either in a coma ... or works for the mainstream media, where that utterly obvious question can never, ever be uttered.

Does not mentioning the truth mean the truth isn't true? Does pretending that President Bush is leading America, make him a leader? Are we supposed to take Brian Williams and The New York Times seriously, when they report on the President's comings and goings, speeches and meetings, as if there's a man inside the President's suit -- as if George W. Bush has ever been in the room, when any presidential policy has been decided?

You know, of course, that the ultimate CEOs behind every American news network and most major American newspapers could all meet at your dinner table, if you've got six chairs and don't mind stepping out of the room yourself. Those half-dozen silk-suited white guys are in ultimate control of every channel on your TV set, every newspaper you read, and every radio station you listen to, unless you're going out of your way to find alternative media. They control the horizontal, the vertical, and they set the limits of what's acceptable discourse in America.

And none of their stations, none of their newspapers ever ask the obvious question: "Who's pulling the puppet President's strings?" ... because the answer leads right back to those same six guys.

That's why American mainstream media will never report the obvious phoniness of the President, though it's as plain as cattlecrap on the carpet. Paid pundits -- left or right -- won't mention the President's mental feebleness, at least not until he begins to drool or suck his thumb during a joint session of Congress.

Instead, they debate Bush's accomplishments, as if he's had some. The disastrous wars, the crony appointments, and the insipid pronouncements that come from the President's lips, are dissected in detail on talking-head TV, and always framed as if they're discussing Bush's actual ideas.

You could almost believe this man Bush was President of the United States ... if only you don't believe your own eyes and ears.

© by the author.

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Can there be an honest observer of the President, anywhere in the world, who dares claim that Bush is engaged and aware of his surroundings, and is making America's national policy decisions?

Can anyone who's not a professional liar state that President Bush is there?

There's no 'there' there.

Nobody's answering at roll call.

The President's escalator doesn't go up, and his stairway is two or three planks short.

To be sure, I don't claim that any of this is a revelation -- it's amazingly obvious.

I'm not saying anything here that isn't whispered and shouted by many millions of people every day.

And the familiar follow-up question, asked by you and me and everyone we know, asked by Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, asked by Americans and foreigners everywhere on Earth:

Who's pulling the puppet President's strings?

Anyone who hasn't asked that question is either in a coma ... or works for the mainstream media, where that utterly obvious question can never, ever be uttered.

Does not mentioning the truth mean the truth isn't true?

Does pretending that President Bush is leading America, make him a leader?

Are we supposed to take Brian Williams and The New York Times seriously, when they report on the President's comings and goings, speeches and meetings, as if there's a man inside the President's suit -- as if George W. Bush has ever been in the room, when any presidential policy has been decided?

Is President Bush bonkers?