An striking (if narrow) video look at the difference between the George W. Bush of ten years ago — as a candidate for Texas governor — and the sitting candidate for president today.
In the July/August Atlantic, James Fallows wrote an illuminating piece on the then-upcoming debates between George W. Bush and John Kerry. For his article, rather than talking to campaign spinners for each side and reporting what they said, he dove into the archival record of each man’s debates, and made an astonishing discovery: 10 years ago, George W. Bush was an articulate, forceful debater. Tough to believe, but when Fallows reviewed the tapes of Bush’s 1994 debate with Anne Richards, he found that not only did Bush win the debate, but he spoke well.
And, yes, the video shows a bold, forceful, polished speaker at the Texas debate, a true “Yale graduate and Harvard MBA” — intercut with more recent appearances of a greyer, slower, more word-stumbling Dubya as we’ve come to know him.
Pre-senile dementia, as one quoted doctor suggests? It seems far too easy to toss around diagnoses like that with limited proof (and in the course of a couple of edited minutes of video) — though the question of when Alzheimers began to strike down Ronald Reagan — and who knew about it at the time — should make us at least a little careful.
Still, the Bush of a decade ago was “merely” a candidate. He could rest, prepare, focus on debate speeches to his heart’s content. The Bush of today has, at a minimum, gone through three years of one of the toughest jobs on the planet, one well known for wearing down and aging a man (take a look at Bill Clinton in 2000 vs. Bill Clinton in 1990 as an example, though you can see it in pretty much all presidents). For all that people joke about it, Bush still has that job, and its effect on his ability to focus on debate prep has to be substantial.
It is ironic that while some folks attack Bush as someone who’s always been dim, poorly spoken, and a dolt, the video’s hypothesis is that, only a decade ago, he was sharp, fluent, and erudite, and only now is dim, poorly spoken, and a dolt. Despite the “before” and “after” clips being highly selective, it does make one wonder.
Of course, now I’m waiting for the John Gill comparisons (“with Skip Homeier as Karl Rove!”) …
(via BoingBoing)
Kim and I hypothesize that he might have Bell’s Palsy (I believe that’s what it’s called): note how his smiles are so lopsided, as though half of his face is having problems.
He’s put off his presidential physical until after the election, almost as though he knows something’s wrong. Or rather, his handlers know that.
On the one hand, his physical last year found him in “excellent” physical shape, which is at odds with some of the more paranoid bits in this article. His 2002 physical was much the same, as was his 2001.
On the other hand, the WaPo article above notes that a physical is only a 3-hour procedure, which makes putting it off because he’s too busy kind of silly as an excuse. Though his earlier physicals were done in August, it sounds, in conjunction with “vacation” periods/trips to Crawford (as in 2002 and 2001), which is not happening this time, as far as I can see.
Lacking anything more concrete, I’m disinclined to think that there’s some major medical skeleton lurking in the closet (I tend against conspiracy theories), but I would be willing to believe in a minor but worrisome condition being present (whether it’s fatigue-related or some non-debilitating but strange-sounding syndrome) and being suppressed by the spin doctors so that it doesn’t “confuse” the electorate in a tight race.
For an interesting medical summary of GWB (and other presidents), see here.