The Ibogaine Factor

It’s hard to believe we’re actually talking about the President of the United States being a pedophile.

I mean…..it used to be that just the whiff of something off-kilter would end a political career. Howard Dean’s ended when he screeched a loud “Yea!” onstage and his voice broke like Simon Le Bon’s at Live Aid. Mike Dukakis was sent into political Elba for looking goofy wearing a tank helmet. Journalist Hunter Thompson was once so bored on the campaign trail covering Ed Muskie that he made up a story that the increasingly dull candidate was a dope fiend addicted to Ibogaine. It seemed plausible enough (“Ibogaine produces a state of drowsiness in which the subject does not wish to move, open his eyes, or be aware of his environment”), so everybody ran with it. Muskie was doomed.

Thompson later clarified….“I never said he was taking Ibogaine. I said there was a rumor in Milwaukee that he was, which was true when I started the rumor in Milwaukee.”

The good doctor was scrupulously honest.

Thompson also shed light on what is now known as “pig-fucker politics”. He recounted the following from the early LBJ days..

“The race was close and Johnson was getting worried. Finally he told his campaign manager to start a massive rumor campaign about his opponent’s life-long habit of enjoying carnal knowledge with his barnyard sows.

“Christ, we can’t get away with calling him a pig-fucker,” the campaign manager protested. “Nobody’s going to believe a thing like that.”

“I know,” Johnson replied. “But let’s make the sonofabitch deny it.”

Those were the days.