Cole carves up Bush

Using phrases like "damaged goods", "drinking like a fish every night," and "addicted to cocaine," Cole attacks the latest Bush approved, Swift boat liar smeer campaign, and the man himself. It is always enjoyable when Juan takes a break from the Iraqi shitstorm, and draws a bead on domestic issues. And this case the dissolute Duaphin takes one on the chin.

The debate that a handful of Texas multi-millionnaires close to the Bush family have cleverly manufactured over John Kerry's war record is absurd in every way. The charges that they have put some vets up to making against Kerry are false and can be demonstrated by the historical record to be false. Most of those making the charges have even flip-flopped, contradicting themselves. Or they weren't eyewitnesses and are just lying.

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What was Bush doing with his youth? He was drinking. He was drinking like a fish, every night, into the wee hours. For decades. He gave no service to anyone, risked nothing, and did not even slack off efficiently. At what point he became addicted to cocaine, in addition to demon rum, is unclear.

And the gloves are off. Cole takes aim at Bush's murderous tendancies.

The history of alcoholism and cocaine use is a key issue because it not only speaks to Bush's character as an addictive personality, but tells us something about his erratic and alarming actions as president. His explosive temper probably provoked the disastrous siege of Fallujah last spring, killing 600 Iraqis, most of them women and children, in revenge for the deaths of 4 civilian mercenaries, one of them a South African. (Newsweek reported that Bush commanded his cabinet, "Let heads roll!") That temper is only one problem. Bush has a sadistic streak. He clearly enjoyed, as governor, watching executions. His delight in killing people became a campaign issue in 2000 when he seemed, in one debate, to enjoy the prospect of executing wrong-doers a little too much. He has clearly gone on enjoying killing people on a large scale in Iraq. Cocaine use permanently affects the ability of the person to feel deep emotions like empathy. Two decades of pickling his nervous system in various highly toxic substances have left Bush damaged goods. That he managed to get on the wagon (though with that pretzel incident, you wonder how firmly) is laudable. But he suffers the severe effects of the aftermath, and we are all suffering along with him now, since he is the most powerful man in the world.

He follows this up with "We all know by now that Bush did not even do his full service with the Texas Air National Guard,.............." and then points to an interview on All things concidered with Roy Blount's nephew Murch Archibald about what it was like to work with the young Dubya. I am reminded of the nickname "Texas Souffle" George got from people who he worked with when on the campaign in Alabama. Let's take a look, shall we.

For weeks, reporters scoured Alabama in search of pilots or anyone who might have remembered seeing Mr. Bush at the time he was serving in the National Guard there. There is one place in Alabama where Mr. Bush was present nearly every day: the headquarters in Montgomery of US Senate candidate Winton "Red" Blount.

What follows is a discription of Bush hard at work on the campaign trail.

. . . Murph Archibald is Red Blount's nephew by marriage, and in 1972, he was coming off a 15-month tour in Vietnam in the infantry. Archibald says that in a campaign full of dedicated workers, Mr. Bush was not one of them.

Mr. MURPH ARCHIBALD (Nephew of Red Blount): Well, I was coming in early in the morning and leaving in mid-evenings. Ordinarily, George would come in around noon; he would ordinarily leave around 5:30 or 6:00 in the evening.

GOODWYN: Archibald says that two months before the election, in September of '72, Red Blount's campaign manager came to him and asked that he quietly take over Mr. Bush's job because the campaign materials were not getting out to the counties.

Mr. ARCHIBALD: George certainly didn't seem to have any concerns about my taking over this work with the campaign workers there. My overall impression was that he didn't seem as interested in the campaign as the other people who were working at the state headquarters.

Thats a man that likes to work and work hard.

GOODWYN: Far from Texas and Washington, DC, Mr. Bush enjoyed his freedom. He dated a beautiful young woman working on the campaign. He went out in the evenings and had a good time. In fact, he left the house he rented in such disrepair--with damage to the walls and a chandelier destroyed--that the Montgomery family who owned it still grumble about the unpaid repair bill. Archibald says Mr. Bush would come into the office and, in a friendly way, offer up stories about the drinking he'd done the night before, kind of as a conversation starter.

Mr. ARCHIBALD: People have different ways of starting the days in any office. They're going to talk about their kids, they're going to talk about football, they're going to talk about the weather. And this was simply his opening gambit; he would start talking about that he had been out late the night before drinking.

GOODWYN: Archibald says the frequency with which Mr. Bush discussed the subject was off-putting to him.

"Dude, just rolled in, lunch anybody, man did I really tie one on last night. Wooohooo, so did you go out last night, I had soo much rum and secretaries, nearly though I would not make it ot work today." After three hours of bragging about drinking, george has a couple hours left to kill, before starting all over again.

Mr. ARCHIBALD: I mean, at that time, I was 28; George would have been 25 or 26. And I thought it was really unusual that someone in their mid-20s would initiate conversations, particularly in the context of something as serious as a US senatorial campaign, by talking about their drinking the night before. I thought it unusual and, frankly, inappropriate.

GOODWYN: According to Archibald, Mr. Bush would also sometimes tell stories about his days at Yale in New Haven, and how whenever he got pulled over for erratic driving, he was let go after the officers discovered he was the grandson of a Connecticut US senator. Archibald, a middle-class Alabama boy--who, by the way, is now a registered Democrat--didn't like that story.

Mr. ARCHIBALD: He told us whenever he was stopped, as soon as the law enforcement found out that he was the grandson of Prescott Bush, they would let him go. And he would always laugh about that. "

Bush grew up a pampered, pathetic, priviledged, jackass, who never worked an honest day in his life, bragged about pushing his weight around. What a fucking tool. Maybe I'll dig around a bit and see if I can find some other accounts of the "Texas Souffle"
And there is more from CNN.

George W. Bush has long had a habit of giving people nicknames—and perhaps that's because he picked up a few along the way himself.

Like the one he earned in 1972, when he left his home in Houston to work on the long-shot Senate campaign of Winton M. (Red) Blount in Alabama.

Bush, then 26, would often turn up at campaign headquarters in Montgomery around lunchtime, recount his late-night exploits and brag about his political connections, according to a Blount campaign worker.

All that made him slow to win over the Alabama crowd, who began to complain that Bush was letting things slide.

C. Murphy Archibald, a nephew of Blount's who worked on the campaign that fall, told TIME that Bush "was good at schmoozing the county chairs, but there wasn't a lot of follow-up."

Archibald, now a trial attorney in North Carolina, remembers that a group of older Alabama socialites, who were volunteering their time, gave Bush a nickname because they thought he "looked good on the outside but was full of hot air." They called him the Texas Soufflé.

Skimming the surface and skipping over details may be business as usual for a happy-go-lucky 26-year-old, but it's a problem for a President during a winter of discontent.

Nice. Theres more, and in a first for this blog at least, we will conclude with a recipe for the tasty Texas Soufflé. First though form the Birmingham News.

Saturday, February 28, 2004

BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE

News staff writer

George W. Bush didn't make much of an impression as a Guardsman in Alabama, but plenty of people recall him socially from 1972, with memories fond and foul.

Bush is remembered by those who say they worked with him, socialized with him, even those who say he still owes them money.

Winston Groom, the "Forrest Gump" author, remembers a pleasant dinner with Bush in the summer of 1972. Lobbyist Fred Crawford recalls talking baseball, lots of baseball, with Bush. Birmingham native Murphy Archibald, now a lawyer in Charlotte, recounts how Bush often bragged about his drinking.
[......]

And he lived in a two-bedroom, one-bath cottage in Montgomery's historic Cloverdale neighborhood, the furnished home of a 68-year-old widow.

That's what the Smith family remembers most about Bush, how he left their aunt's home damaged, dirty and dumpy.

"He was just a rich kid who had no respect for other people's possessions," said Mary Smith, whose family found damaged walls, broken furnishings and a chandelier destroyed after Bush left the house. A bill sent to collect the damages went unpaid, the family said.

[.....]

Bush arrived in the third week of May 1972 as an outsider to a campaign that already had been running for five months, since Blount had won the Republican primary on May 2. Bush came in cocky and that turned some people off, McLennan said.

"I think he had some preconceived notions about how the world spun," McLennan said. But after a while, Bush seemed to warm up to his new surroundings and everyone on the campaign, McLennan said. "I think he really grew to respect the people there."

It wasn't always mutual. "There were some people who obviously resented George coming in there. Everything was rocking along and then George was dropped in the middle of it."

That about takes care of that old but fun story from february. And now for the Recipe.

Texas Souffle

Total preparation time: 10 minutes
Serves: 6

Ingredients:

1/4 cup flour

5 eggs - lightly beaten

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup light cottage cheese

1/2 cup light sour cream

2 cups shreaded cheese - Mexican variety

4 oz chopped green chili peppers with juice

Steps:

1. Mix all ingredients together.
2. Divide between 6 greased custard cups.
3. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until a knife inserted in center comes out clean.
4. Invert onto serving plate.