NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A onetime senior attorney to former President George W. Bush was charged Thursday with trying to kill his wife at their Connecticut home by beating her with a flashlight and choking her. Fifty-seven-year-old John Michael Farren was arraigned on charges of strangulation and attempted murder and ordered held on $2 million bail. His wife, Mary Farren, was beaten so severely Wednesday night at their New Canaan home that she was at points knocked unconscious and lost vision, police said.