Tabloid update: "Laura Claws Boozing Bush"

We were watching the news coverage of President Bush's trip to the Mideast with Condoleezza Rice and wondering where Laura Bush was, and then a trip to the supermarket answered the question. She's on the cover of the Globe.

"Laura's Claw Marks!" the cover screams, as the block letters separate a murderous looking first lady from a president with two nasty red scratches on his left cheek.

Well.

Looks like the season of good cheer is over in the tabloid business.

The Globe says the president was photographed with the scratches on January 1, 2008, after "furious First Lady Laura raked his face with her nails during a bitter blow-up over the president's drinking."

You can see the scratches in this Reuters photo from the same day:



According to the tabloid, Laura caught the president drinking whiskey at the ranch in Crawford just before the New Year.

"Laura just lost it," the Globe reports, quoting "one top White House source." "She can't stand it when he drinks."

The tabloid says Mrs. Bush demanded that the president put the glass down, whereupon he "hurled a string of obscenities at her," and she "lunged at him screaming and slapped him -- hard."

Mrs. Bush's nails apparently tore into her husband's face during the brief scuffle, leaving the president bloodied and the marriage "in tatters."

"It was ugly!" the source says.

The Globe says it has another source to confirm the incident. The president is drinking again, the source said, and when Mrs. Bush confronted him about it, "he turned on her, and let loose with a verbal barrage that included curse words."

So she decked him.

Now he's in the Middle East, where people get along a lot better.

It must be very restful for him.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Bush can take pride in the fact that Fight Night at the Western White House knocked the "Paul McCartney Dying" story (it was angioplasty, he's fine) into a tiny corner of the Globe's front page.

That's a star.


Copyright 2008

Editor's note: Catch up on your tabloid reading with "Laura's secret divorce diary," "Bush marital turmoil," "Laura Bush's cover story" and "All right, let's dish."

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