Addicted to power

So, I'm worried about President Bush. Between you, me and the fence post, the guy's got real problems.\nI first noticed it Nov. 1, when he took an 11th-hour trip to Virginia to stump unsuccessfully for Republican gubernatorial candidate Jerry Kilgore. Once upon a time, a visit from Bush on the eve of an election would've been political gold. But as Bush launched into his standard rose-colored rhetoric about "freedom" and "values," it was clear the gold had lost its luster.\nBush has become "that guy." You know the one -- the guy who keeps drinking after everyone else has gone home, who wants to "puke and rally" instead of taking a hint and calling it a night. He was fun when you were 19, but now that you're older, he's just embarrassing.\nBush is addicted to power -- he can't control himself. And sadly, the party he's killing is the GOP. Instead of a rainmaker, he's become a political pariah whose stamp of approval is the kiss of death.\nLooking back, we should've recognized the warning signs.\nIt's no secret Bush's pre-political days were plagued by problem drinking and cocaine use. He's simply cross-addicted, like a junkie giving up heroin only to fall in love with crack. Power is his new fix.\nAnd he's in serious denial. Think how long he insisted there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, well after the rest of us knew the truth. How long has he been convinced America doesn't torture its prisoners and global warming isn't a problem?\nHave you ever noticed whenever someone criticizes him, he wriggles out from under responsibility? "I don't have a problem! You're the one with the problem!" he whimpers. That's a hallmark of addiction.\nThen think of everything else he's neglected in order to feed his lust for power. The economy, deficit, hurricane relief, health care, education, civil liberties -- they've all fallen into disrepair so Bush can travel from state to state to participate in fund-raisers and from country to country to bluster and bloviate about "freedom on the march" and various axes of evil. That's a classic sign of addiction, when the drug is all that matters.\nIf only his mother had warned him about falling in with the wrong crowd, had asked him things like, "If Karl Rove and Tommy DeLay jumped off a cliff, would you do it, too?" If only someone had set some boundaries for him. Say Congress, for instance.\nOr maybe if we'd all seen it sooner, we wouldn't have given him four more years of power. We could've sent him home to Texas, where he could get the help he needed.\nOur best bet now, our only hope of stopping him from embarrassing himself, his party or the American people any more than he already has, is to do an all-out intervention, à la Dr. Phil. We need to send a Democratic majority to Congress next November to lay down some new rules and to take away Bush's drug of power before it destroys him and uncounted others.