A New York Slime Special White House press secretary Ari Fleischer denied persistent rumors that President Bush injured himself when he fell off his couch in a drunken stupor as he watched a Baltimore Ravens playoff football game.
Ask the Dogs?
However, a leading medical expert we spoke to, Dr. Frank Partisano of the N.Y.U. Medical Center's Alcohol and Drug Treatment Program, doubted the offical White House version of events. "While fainting is a remote possibility, you have to look at the situation forensically. Pretzels are often consumed with beer and the president has a history of alcohol abuse. Too much beer is a much more likely cause for the president's fall."
Finally, Partisano had problems with visualizing how a fainting person seated on a couch could fall onto the floor hard and hit their head. "You would think it much more likely that he would have slumped down into the couch itself rather than hit the floor."
Lone Star Beer Connection The president, sporting a large bruise on his cheek and lips, told reporters, "I feel great," as he prepared to board a helicopter for a two-day trip to the Midwest and Louisiana. But Bush raised eyebrows when he added, "My mother always said, 'When you're eating pretzels, chew before you swallow. Always listen to your mother.'"
Brother of bin Laden Disputes Bush Account Speculation about the motives for Bush's latest drinking binge ranged from concern over what might come out in the emerging Enron scandal, frustration with heavy recent football gambling debts, to disappointment over not getting another tropical island for Christmas from his father. Most White House experts seemed to favor the gambling debts thesis. Said one unnamed source, "He's a really terrible gambler, especially when he drinks. This is a man, after all, who traded away Sammy Sosa for a player to be named later. I don't think he's smart enough to be worried about Enron."
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Insisting the president was not drinking at the time, Fleischer sarcastically told one reporter, "If you don't believe me ask the dogs." This was an apparent reference to the two Christian fundamentalist dogs given to the president by Jerry Falwell who reportedly were starring at him when he awoke on the floor. Said Fleischer, "The dogs were looking at him funny."
Partisano found another aspect of the incident troubling. "The nurse on duty reported that Bush believed he was out only for a few seconds because when he awoke, his two dogs were sitting in the same position they were when he lost consciousness. This makes little sense if you know dogs. When you tip over and fall off a couch on your face hard enough to injure yourself, there's no way your dogs wouldn't be startled into moving. They would likely first move away, and then come over to smell you and see if you were OK. They certainly would not remain frozen in the same position."
Suspicions that the president was drinking when he fell were given credence by repeated reports that large cases of Lone Star beer were being smuggled into the White House by Air Force One pilots. The photo on the right, captured January 12th by one of our Slime photographers, clearly shows one of the pilots (the Al Bundy look-a-like on the left) carting a case of Lone Star towards a waiting limo.
Reached at his palacial mansion in Saudi Arabia, Oilwella bin Laden, a brother of Osama bin Laden and an old Bush family friend, told the Slime that Bush lied, and did not state his mother's advise correctly.
"We were about nineteen and were eating pretzels and drinking beer together in Dubya's room. His mom came in and caught us. What she really said was, 'Be careful you don't choke on those awful pretzels. Make sure you always wash them down with some of daddy's beer.'" Oilwella backed up his claims of close Bush family ties and heavy drinking with a photo he supplied (left), purporting to be an intoxicated Bush wearing Oilwella's turban.
