I wasn’t a knee-walking drunk

My new favorite name, a guy on McNeil-Lehrer yesterday talking about malaria: Dr. Ripley Ballou.

Bush tells ABC, “I doubt I’d be standing here if I hadn’t quit drinking whiskey, and beer and wine and all that.” Is it wrong of me to wish I had a time machine and a bottle of Wild Turkey?

He says that he was never a “knee-walking drunk.” That’s right, when he was drunk he usually preferred to drive. He does say he had an “addiction.” Is this the first time he’s admitted that?

What really got him to quit was that it was interfering with... his mountain biking: “Alcohol can compete with your affections. It sure did in my case. Affections with your family, or affections for exercise.”