Bush: The early years.

[eirias]

So today I ran across this movie comparing some clips from the 1994 Texas gubernatorial debates to some clips from the first Bush v. Kerry presidential debate. There's really a striking difference - he used to be much more articulate and confident, and I can actually see why the people of Texas chose him as governor. At the end of the video, a physician is quoted speculating that Bush may have presenile dementia, or early-onset Alzheimer's.

Of course, I'm sure the most extreme segments were chosen from each to highlight the point the compiler was trying to make; and I don't know how comparable the situations were. In particular, it's possible that in the Texas debate, Bush and his opponent knew the questions in advance - one would expect that to increase fluency. (But then again, didn't he have advance notice of the questions in the first debate, too? And he did much worse in the first one than he did in the second, where neither candidate knew what to expect.) Furthermore, I think the granting of medical diagnoses to people you haven't met is irresponsible at best. But my interest is piqued nonetheless - has he actually deteriorated mentally? If so, why?

The passage suggesting dementia is taken from a letter to the Atlantic written by Dr. Joseph Price, which has been reprinted in the Washington Monthly, a liberal online magazine. Dr. Price is actually wrong to refer to the "Bushisms" as "confabulation" - this term refers to the "filling-in" of episodic memory gaps with fictitious events in order to cover the amnesia. That doesn't include the kind of mistakes Bush makes, which seem to be things like spoonerisms and other speech errors. That's not to say it couldn't be an organic problem, though. Or, you know, maybe he's just not getting enough sleep these days.

Comments

[ksledge.livejournal.com]

I dunno...I think that people have made this big deal about something on sketchy evidence. Also, I think he sounded equally dumb 4 years ago as he does now, personally. I haven't seen a decline. People were making jokes about his inability to speak 4 years ago. I didn't know anything about him 10 years ago, though.

You are right about the Bushisms NOT being confabulation. I don't know who first started this rumor, but it's totally false. Bushisms are more of a sign of dyslexia or some sort of speech impediment. Confabulation is for memory errors. They are completely different.

I DO think that Bush has a diagnosable disorder involving verbal cognition. However, I don't think it has necessarily gotten worse over the years, nor do I think it is dimensia.

[leora.livejournal.com]

The general theory I'd heard was that he seemed to have been trained to make speech errors to increase his folksy charm.

The usual example given is his mispronunciation of "nuclear". His father pronounces it correctly. He was raised among people who pronounce it correctly. There's no real reason for him to mispronounce it, yet he does.

Remember, in 2000, he was going up against Gore. People didn't like Gore because he was smart and perceived as boring. Too smart and voters don't trust someone. So, Bush played up - I am just one of the people. And now, he may well be stuck in it. He may not be able to easily get back from years of misspeaking, plus, it would look suspicious if he did.

[cognative.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of things he does are to push the folksy charm angle. In the debates he was constaly refering to Kerry's responses as "a mouthful" or somehthing similar.
Even if he has some verbal disorder it very much works in his "aww shucks I'm just a good old boy" advantage.

[ex-miang438.livejournal.com]

...until he starts calling terrorists "folks." I don't think I know a single person who's responded well to that.

[cognative.livejournal.com]

how many people do you know in the deep south? :)