Oh, this is rich. You accuse me of drinking and then cry when it happens to you. SM

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(I was ready to disregard this, coming from the National Enquirer. Then I weighed the credibility and honesty of the National Enquirer against the credibility and honesty of conservatives, and suddenly there was no longer any contest.)

BUSH'S BOOZE CRISIS

By JENNIFER LUCE and DON GENTILE

Faced with the biggest crisis of his political life, President Bush has hit the bottle again, The National Enquirer can reveal.

Bush, who said he quit drinking the morning after his 40th birthday, has started boozing amid the Katrina catastrophe.

Family sources have told how the 59-year-old president was caught by First Lady Laura downing a shot of booze at their family ranch in Crawford, Texas, when he learned of the hurricane disaster.

His worried wife yelled at him: Stop, George.

Following the shocking incident, disclosed here for the first time, Laura privately warned her husband against falling off the wagon and vowed to travel with him more often so that she can keep an eye on Dubya, the sources add.

When the levees broke in New Orleans, it apparently made him reach for a shot, said one insider. He poured himself a Texas-sized shot of straight whiskey and tossed it back. The First Lady was shocked and shouted: Stop George!

Laura gave him an ultimatum before, 'It's Jim Beam or me.' She doesn't want to replay that nightmare � especially now when it's such tough going for her husband.

Bush is under the worst pressure of his two terms in office and his popularity is near an all-time low. The handling of the Katrina crisis and troop losses in Iraq have fueled public discontent and pushed Bush back to drink.

A Washington source said: The sad fact is that he has been sneaking drinks for weeks now. Laura may have only just caught him � but the word is his drinking has been going on for a while in the capital. He's been in a pressure cooker for months.

The war in Iraq, the loss of American lives, has deeply affected him. He takes every soldier's life personally. It has left him emotionally drained.

The result is he's taking drinks here and there, likely in private, to cope. And now with the worst domestic crisis in his administration over Katrina, you pray his drinking doesn't go out of control.

Another source said: I'm only surprised to hear that he hadn't taken a shot sooner. Before Katrina, he was at his wit's end. I've known him for years. He's been a good ol' Texas boy forever. George had a drinking problem for years that most professionals would say needed therapy. He doesn't believe in it [therapy], he never got it. He drank his way through his youth, through college and well into his thirties. Everyone's drinking around him.

Another source said: A family member told me they fear George is 'falling apart.' The First Lady has been assigned the job of gatekeeper. Bush's history of drinking dates back to his youth. Speaking of his time as a young man in the National Guard, he has said: One thing I remember, and I'm most proud of, is my drinking and partying. Those were the days my friends. Those were the good old days!

Age 26 in 1972, he reportedly rounded off a night's boozing with his 16-year-old brother Marvin by challenging his father to a fight.

On November 1, 2000, on the eve of his first presidential election, Bush acknowledged that in 1976 he was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol near his parents' home in Maine. Age 30 at the time, Bush pleaded guilty and paid a $150 fine. His driving privileges were temporarily suspended in Maine.

I'm not proud of that, he said. I made some mistakes. I occasionally drank too much, and I did that night. I learned my lesson. In another interview around that time, he said: Well, I don't think I had an addiction. You know it's hard for me to say. I've had friends who were, you know, very addicted... and they required hitting bottom (to start) going to AA. I don't think that was my case.

During his 2000 presidential campaign, there were also persistent questions about past cocaine use. Eventually Bush denied using cocaine after 1992, then quickly extended the cocaine-free period back to 1974, when he was 28.

Dr. Justin Frank, a Washington D.C. psychiatrist and author of Bush On The Couch: Inside The Mind Of The President, told The National Enquirer: I do think that Bush is drinking again. Alcoholics who are not in any program, like the President, have a hard time when stress gets to be great.

I think it's a concern that Bush disappears during times of stress. He spends so much time on his ranch. It's very frightening.

Published on: 09/21/2005

Since when is it UnAmerican to want to know the TRUTH? Why are you people so ANTI-TRUTH? Wouldn't surprise me if this administration goes down in history as much more corrupt than Nixon.

In the middle of a "war"??!! Bush should be protected because we're stuck in HIS war that HE started based on HIS LIES? At the very least, it would show the entire world that not ALL Americans condone lying, attacking and occupying sovereign nations for no reason. I personally hope they FRY him and hold him and all those involved in his administration accountable for every single EVIL thing they have done.

Your theory that we shouldn't do this while we're in the middle of a war is like the guy who killed both his parents and then threw himself on the mercy of the court because he's an ORPHAN.

Whatever happened to "The truth will set you free"? Why are you people HATE the truth so much?

Did George Bush serve his country??????? I'd say Obama served his country right on our shores by working with the impoverished in Chicago. GW wouldn't dirty his hands and neither would McSame.

McWayne looks like a corpse with too much makeup on. One heartbeat away from the presidency? JC...............It is God's will we are in Iraq? W?

Okay, this is the one area Democratics leaders always try to mislead the American public on:

The rich get major tax breaks.
The rich get all of the Bush tax cuts.
The rich pay no taxes.

Of course they never want to explain what an unproportional percentage the wealthy in this country pay to taxes. Now to the FACTS from the Department of the Treasury:

The latest data is from the 2002 taxes. The following incomes split levels from the IRS are (% of total individual income tax in parenthesis):

Top 1%: above $ 285,424 (33.71%)
Top 5%: above $ 126,525 (53.80%)
Top 10%: above $ 92,663 (65.73%)
Top 25%: above $ 56,401 (83.90%)
Top 50%: above $ 28,654 (96.50%)
Bottom 50%: below $ 28,654 (4.50%)

The President's Tax cuts actually increase the burden on the wealthy while providing greater relief to the bottom 50 (who are not contributing proportionally to the federal coffers).
DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
Office of Public Affairs
March 2, 2005
FACT SHEET: Who Pays the Most Individual Income Taxes?

The individual income tax is highly progressive � a small group of higher-income taxpayers pay most of the individual income taxes each year.

� In 2002 the latest year of available data, the top 5 percent of taxpayers paid more than one-half (53.8 percent) of all individual income taxes, but reported roughly one-third (30.6 percent) of income.

� The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 33.7 percent of all individual income taxes in 2002. This group of taxpayers has paid more than 30 percent of individual income taxes since 1995. Moreover, since 1990 this group�s tax share has grown faster than their income share.

� Taxpayers who rank in the top 50 percent of taxpayers by income pay virtually all individual income taxes. In all years since 1990, taxpayers in this group have paid over 94 percent of all individual income taxes. In 2000, 2001, and 2002, this group paid over 96 percent of the total.

The President�s tax cuts have shifted a larger share of the individual income taxes paid to higher income taxpayers. In 2005, when most of the tax cut provisions are fully in effect (e.g., lower tax rates, the $1,000 child credit, marriage penalty relief), the projected tax share for lower-income taxpayers will fall, while the tax share for higher-income taxpayers will rise.

� The share of taxes paid by the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers will fall from 4.1 percent to 3.6 percent.

� The share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent of taxpayers will rise from 32.3 percent to 33.7 percent.

� The average tax rate for the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers falls by 27 percent as compared to a 13 percent decline for taxpayers in the top 1 percent.

Summary of Federal Individual Income Tax Data