| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Dr. Newto Joseph" |
| Date: |
12 Feb 2005 08:09:01 PM |
| Object: |
Is George W. Bush Insane? |
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Is George W. Bush insane? TODAY"S UNKNOWN NEWS
Is George W. Bush insane?
Tour recent "episodes" and decide for yourself:
Aug. 7, 2002 Dec. 11, 2002 Feb. 7, 2003 March 4, 2003 March 5,
2003 March 6, 2003 March 17, 2003 March 20, 2003 March 29, 2003 May 31, 2003
June 27, 2003 July 2, 2003 July 2, 2003 Sept. 2, 2003 Oct. 9, 2003 Oct. 28,
2003 Dec. 11, 2003 Jan. 11, 2004 March 11, 2004 June 4, 2004 June 14, 2004
June 26, 2004 July 16, 2004 July 20, 2004 Oct. 17, 2004
Psychoanalyst describes Bush as "paranoid megalomaniac,"
"untreated alcoholic"
Capitol Hill Blue
June 14, 2004
A new book by a prominent Washington psychoanalyst says
President George W. Bush is a "paranoid meglomaniac" as well as a sadist and
"untreated alcoholic." The doctor's analysis appears to confirm earlier
reports the President may be emotionally unstable.
Dr. Justin Frank, writing in Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind
of the President, also says the President has a "lifelong streak of sadism,
ranging from childhood pranks (using firecrackers to explode frogs) to
insulting journalists, gloating over state executions ... [and] pumping his
fist gleefully before the bombing of Baghdad."
Even worse, Dr. Frank concludes, the President's years of heavy
drinking "may have affected his brain function -- and his decision to quit
drinking without the help of a 12-step program [puts] him at far higher risk
of relapse."
Dr. Frank's revelations comes on the heels of last week's
Capitol Hill Blue exclusive that revealed increasing concern by White House
aides over Bush's emotional stability.
Aides, who spoke only on condition that their names be withheld,
told stories of wide mood swings by the President who would go from quoting
the Bible one minute to obscenity-filled outbursts the next.
Bush shows an inability to grieve -- dating back to age 7, when
his sister died. "The family's reaction -- no funeral and no mourning -- set
in motion his life-long pattern of turning away from pain [and hiding]
behind antic behavior," says Frank, who says Bush may suffer from Attention
Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Other findings by Dr. Frank:
. His mother, Barbara Bush -- tabbed by some family friends as
"the one who instills fear" -- had trouble connecting emotionally with her
son, Frank argues.
. George H.W. Bush's "emotional and physical absence during his
son's youth triggered feelings of both adoration and revenge in George W."
. The President suffers from "character pathology," including
"grandiosity" and "megalomania" -- viewing himself, America and God as
interchangeable.
Dr. Frank has been a psychiatrist for 35 years and is director
of psychiatry at George Washington University. A Democrat, he once headed
the Washington Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility.
In an interview with The Washington Post's Richard Leiby, Dr.
Frank said he began to be concerned about Bush's behavior in 2002.
"I was really very unsettled by him and I started watching
everything he did and reading what he wrote, and watching him on videotape.
I felt he was disturbed," Dr. Frank told Leiby. Bush, he said, "fits the
profile of a former drinker whose alcoholism has been arrested but not
treated."
Dr. Frank's expert recommendation? "Our sole treatment option --
for his benefit and for ours -- is to remove President Bush from office ...
before it is too late."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan refused to comment on the
specifics of Dr. Frank's book or the earlier story by Capitol Hill Blue.
"I don't do book reviews," McClellan said, even though he last
week recommended the latest book by the Washington Post's Bob Woodward to
reporters at the daily press briefing.
Published by
Capitol Hill Blue
Excerpt from Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President
by Justin A. Frank, M.D.
Introduction:
"Curious about George"
If one of my patients frequently said one thing and did another,
I would want to know why. If I found that he often used words that hid their
true meaning and affected a persona that obscured the nature of his actions,
I would grow more concerned. If he presented an inflexible worldview
characterized by an oversimplified distinction between right and wrong, good
and evil, allies and enemies, I would question his ability to grasp reality.
And if his actions revealed an unacknowledged -- even sadistic --
indifference to human suffering, wrapped in pious claims of compassion, I
would worry about the safety of the people whose lives he touched.
For the past three years, I have observed with increasing alarm
the inconsistencies and denials of such an individual. But he is not one of
my patients. He is our president.
George W. Bush is a case study in contradiction. All of us have
witnessed the affable good humor with which he charms both supporters and
detractors; even those of us who disagree with his policies may find him
personally likeable. As time goes on, however, the gulf between his
personality and those policies -- and the style with which they are
executed -- grows ever wider, raising serious questions about his behavior:
. How can someone so friendly and playful be the same person who
cuts funds from government programs aiding the poor and hungry?
. How is it that our deeply religious president feels free to
bomb Iraq -- and then celebrate the results with open expressions of joy?
. How can a president send American soldiers into combat under
false pretenses and then proceed to joke about the deception, finding humor
in the absence of weapons of mass destruction under his Oval Office desk?
. How can someone promise to protect the environment on the one
hand and allow increased arsenic in the public water supply on the other?
And why does he feel he can call his plan to lift logging restrictions in
national forests the "Healthy" Forest Initiative?
. If the president's interpersonal skills are strong enough to
earn him the reputation of being a "people person," why is he so unwilling
and even unable to talk to world leaders, such as Jacques Chirac or Gerhard
Schroeder, who disagree with him?
. How can the president sound so confused and yet act so
decisively? And given the regularity with which he confuses fact with
fantasy, how can he justify decisions based largely on his own personal
suspicions with such unwavering certainty?
As a citizen, I worry about what these contradictions and
inconsistencies say about the president's ability to govern; as a
psychoanalyst, I'm troubled by their implications for the president's
current and long-term mental health, particularly in light of certain
information we know about his past. Naturally, the occasional misstatement
or discrepancy between word and deed may be dismissed as politics as usual.
But when the most powerful man on the planet consistently exhibits an array
of multiple, serious, and untreated symptoms -- any one of which I've seen
patients need years to work through -- it's certainly cause for further
investigation, if not for outright alarm.
President Bush is not my patient, of course, but the discipline
of applied psychoanalysis gives us a way to make as much sense of his psyche
as he is likely ever to allow. At its simplest level, applied psychoanalysis
means the application of psychoanalytic principles to anybody outside one's
own consulting room. The tradition of psychoanalyzing public figures dates
back almost as far as psychoanalysis itself; Freud based some of his most
important theories on his observations of individuals he could never get
onto his couch, Moses and Leonardo da Vinci most notable among them.
Indeed, if Freud were alive in the second half of the twentieth
century, he might well have been recruited to offer his genius in the
service of the U.S. intelligence effort. Somewhere in the bowels of the
George H. W. Bush Center for Central Intelligence in Langley, Virginia,
psychoanalysts are currently reviewing audio recordings, videotapes, and
biographical information on dozens of contemporary world leaders, using the
principles of applied psychoanalysis to develop detailed profiles for use by
the CIA and the U.S. government and military. According to political
psychiatrist Jerrold M. Post, M.D., who has chronicled the history of
"at-a-distance leader personality assessment in support of policy," the
marriage of psychoanalysis and U.S. intelligence dates back to the early
1940s, when the Office of Strategic Services commissioned two studies of
Adolf Hitler. The effort was regarded as enough of a success that it was
institutionalized in the 1960s, Post writes, first under the aegis of the
Psychiatric Staff of the CIA's Office of Medical Services, which "led to the
establishment of the Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political
Behavior" (CAPPB), which Post founded within the Directorate of
Intelligence.
As Post reveals, CIA psychological profiles of Anwar Sadat and
Menachem Begin played an important role in Jimmy Carter's handling of the
1978 Camp David negotiations. And applied psychoanaly-sis continues to enjoy
a privileged place in the intelligence universe.
"At the time of his confirmation hearings, Secretary of the
Defense Donald Rumsfeld identified as his nightmare [the possibility of] not
understanding the intentions of dangerous adversaries," Post writes.
"Accentuated by some of the recent intelligence ‘surprises,' the need to
have a robust applied political psychology capability has been highlighted
and increased resources are currently being applied to human intelligence
and to the study of the personality and political behavior of foreign
leaders, both national leaders and terrorists."
A vote of confidence from today's CIA, of course, might be
described as a mixed blessing. Nevertheless, applied psychoanalysis remains
a vital tool for understanding political leaders. And since one can scarcely
imagine Bush Center resources being committed to a Bush son's psychological
profile, this must be an independent inquiry, albeit one that is informed by
the CAPPB goal as articulated by its founder, Jerrold M. Post: "to
understand shaping events that influenced core attitudes, political
personality, leadership and political behavior."
Published by
HarperCollins
New information shows
Bush indecisive,
paranoid, delusional
by Teresa Hampton,
June 17, 2004
The carefully-crafted image of George W. Bush as a bold,
decisive leader is cracking under the weight of new revelations that the
erratic President is indecisive, moody, paranoid and delusional.
“More and more this brings back memories of the Nixon White
House,” says retired political science professor George Harleigh, who worked
for President Nixon during the second presidential term that ended in
resignation under fire. “I haven’t heard any reports of President Bush
wondering the halls talking to portraits of dead Presidents but what I have
been told is disturbing.”
Two weeks ago, Capitol Hill Blue revealed that a growing number
of White House aides are concerned about the President’s mental stability.
They told harrowing tales of violent mood swings, bouts with paranoia and
obscene outbursts from a President who wears his religion on his sleeve.
Although supporters of President Bush dismissed the reports as
“fantasies from anonymous sources,” a new book by Dr. Justin Frank, director
of psychiatry at George Washington University, raises many similar questions
about the President’s mental stability.
"George W. Bush is a case study in contradiction," Dr. Frank
writes in Bush On The Couch: Inside the Mind of the President. "Bush is an
untreated ex-alcoholic with paranoid and megalomaniac tendencies."
In addition, a new film by documentary filmmaker, and frequent
Bush critic, Michael Moore shows the President indecisive and clearly
befuddled when he learned about the terrorist attacks on the World Trade
Center on September 11, 2001.
While conservative critics who have not yet seen Fahrenheit 9/11
dismiss the work as an anti-Bush screed, Roger Friedman of the normally
pro-Bush Fox News Network has seen the film and calls it “a tribute to
patriotism, to the American sense of duty - and at the same time a
indictment of stupidity and avarice.”
Friedman also says the films “most indelible moment” comes when
Bush, speaking to a group of school kids in Florida, is first informed of
the 9/11 attacks.
“Instead of jumping up and leaving, he instead sat in front of
the class, with an unfortunate look of confusion, for nearly 11 minutes,”
Friedman says. “Moore obtained the footage from a teacher at the school who
videotaped the morning program. There Bush sits, with no access to his
advisers, while New York is being viciously attacked. I guarantee you that
no one who sees this film forgets this episode.”
Dr. Frank says the episode is typical of how Bush deals with
death and tragedy. He notes that Bush avoids funerals.
“President Bush has not attended a single funeral - other than
that of President Reagan. In my book I explore some possible reasons for
that, whether or not it is "presidential". I am less interested in judging
his behavior on political grounds than I am in thinking about its meaning
both to him and to the rest of us,” Dr. Frank says. “He has spent a lifetime
of avoiding grief, starting with the death of his sister when he was 7 years
old. His parents didn't help him with what must have been confusing and
frightening feelings. He also has a history of evading responsibility and
perhaps his not attending funerals has to do with not wanting to see the
damage his policies have wrought.”
In his book, Dr. Frank also suggests Bush resents those in the
military.
“Bush's behavior strongly suggests an unconscious resentment
toward our own servicemen, whose bravery puts his own (nonexistent) wartime
service record to shame,” he wrote.
Supporters of President Bush dismiss Frank’s book as the work of
a Democrat who once headed the Washington Chapter of Physicians for Social
Responsibility, but his work has been praised by other prominent
psychiatrists, including Dr. James Grotstein, Professor at UCLA Medical
Center, and Dr. Irvin Yalom, MD, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University
Medical School.
Dr. Carolyn Williams, a psychoanalyst who specializes in
paranoid personalities, is a registered Republican and agrees with most of
Dr. Frank’s conclusions.
“I find the bulk of his analysis credible,” she said in an
interview. “President Bush grew up dealing with an absent but demanding
father, a tough mother and an overachieving brother. All left indelible
impressions on him along with a desire to prove himself at all cost because
he feels surrounded by disapproval. He behavior suggests a classic paranoid
personality. Additionally, his stated belief that certain actions are 'God's
Will' are symptomatic of delusional behavior.”
Ryan Reynolds, a childhood friend of Bush, concurs.
“George wanted to please his father but never felt he measured
up, especially when compared to Jeb,” Reynolds said.
Dr. Williams wonders if the Iraq war was not Bush’s way of
“proving he could finish something his father could not by deposing Saddam
Hussein.”
But Bush's desire to please his father may have backfired.
Former President George H.W. Bush has remained silent publicly about the
war, saying he will only discuss it with his son "in private." Close aides
say that is because he disapproves of his son's actions against Iraq.
"Former President Bush does not support the war against Iraq,"
says former aide John Ruskin. "It is as simple at that."
While current White House aides and officials would not allow
their names to be used when commenting about Bush’s erratic behavior, others
like former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill confirm concerns about Bush’s
mood swings.
O’Neill says Bush was moody in cabinet meetings and would wander
off on tangents, mostly about Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Bush, O’Neill says,
seemed more focused on Iraq than on finding Osama bin Laden and would lash
out at anyone who disagreed with him.
Harleigh says it is not unusual for White House staffers to
refuse to go public with their concerns about the President’s behavior.
“We saw the same thing in the Nixon years,” he says. “What is
unusual is that the White House has not been able to trot out even one
staffer who is willing to go public and say positive things about the
President’s mental condition. That says more than anything else.”
Dr. Frank, the Democrat, says the only diagnosis he can offer
for the President’s condition is removal from office.
Dr. Williams, the Republican, says she must “reluctantly agree.”
“We have too many unanswered questions about the President’s
behavior,” she says. “You cannot have those kinds of unanswered questions
when you are talking about the leader of the free world.”
Published by
Capitol Hill Blue
New information shows Bush indecisive, paranoid, delusional
What is going on in the White House?
by Dan Froomkin, Washington Post
Excerpt from Bush on the Couch
by Justin A. Frank, M.D.
From the archives,
June 27, 2003:
"God told me to strike at
al Qaida and I struck them"
From the archives,
Sept. 2, 2003:
Noted psychologist
observes Bush's behavior
Says there's plenty to be worried about
Dr. Frank's expert recommendation?
"Our sole treatment option -- for his benefit and for ours -- is
to remove President Bush from office ... before it is too late."
What is going on
in the White House?
by Dan Froomkin, on-line, The Washington Post
June 16, 2004
What's going on inside the White House? Ask Dan Froomkin, who
writes the White House Briefing column for washingtonpost.com. He'll answer
your questions, take your comments and links, and point you to coverage
around the Web.
Today Dan was joined by Justin Frank, Georgetown psychoanalyst
and author of Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President, an
unauthorized "applied psychoanalysis" of the president. Here is an excerpt
from Chapter One.
Dan Froomkin: Justin, Thanks for much for joining us today. Your
book is clearly generating some buzz. Before we get to the reader questions,
give me a quick sense of what sort of reaction you've gotten thus far.
Justin Frank: Thank you for having me online. So far the
reaction I've received has been positive from colleagues as well as media
people. I had an interview last evening on Air America on the Garofolo/Seder
show which was lively and informed. Reviews of the book are just starting to
come in.
Email from Arlington, Va.: Do you think your initial bias
against the President has caused you to grasp for facts that fit a
preconceived conclusion? I think I see this happening in at least excerpt
from the linked summary of your book:
"His comfort living outside the law, defying international law
in his presidency as boldly as he once defied DUI statutes and military
reporting requirements."
I don't think Bush has lived outside international law any more
than other world leaders (Clinton fighting in Kosovo without UN approval,
Chiraq sending troops to Africa without UN aproval, Truman going to Korea
without UN approval). I also don't think, as sad as it is, that he is all
that uncommon for getting a DUI. The "military reporting requirements" bit
is just absurd in my mind because there is substantial evidence that he did
fulfill these requirements.
Do you really have a scientific methodology for coming to your
conclusions, or are you just on a fishing expedition to make the President
look bad?
Justin Frank: You raise some very important questions. I was
concerned about policies promulgated by President Bush before I started my
study of him. However, there have been other presidents whose policies I
have also disagreed with. What was different about Bush was his patterns of
behavior -- to use your question, a pattern of living outside the law. Other
people have been arrested for DUI, as you note. Not many go on drinking for
ten years after that, nor do they run for president. But I agree, he is not
unique as a person. He is unique as a president, however.
Email from Boone, N.C.: To Justin Frank: Has your assessment of
Bush's behavior received endorsements from your colleagues and/or other
psychologists or psychoanalysts?
Justin Frank: I have received endorsements from other
psychoanalysts and psychiatrists, most notably from Dr. James Grotstein, MD
who is Professor at UCLA Medical Center. He gave high praise for the book
and for its scholarship. I also received endorsement from Dr. Irvin Yalom,
MD, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University Medical School. He wrote that
the book is "compelling and persuasive and downright frightening."
Email from Coral Gables, Fla.: What's your response to this Blog
Post by "Respectful of Otters"?
Quote:
"....Frank told us yesterday that his opinions are based on
publicly available materials, adding, "I've never met the president or any
members of his family."
This kind of garbage is forbidden by the ethics code of my own
profession. It took about ten minutes with Google to determine that it also
violates the ethical code of psychiatrists.
" On occasion psychiatrists are asked for an opinion about an
individual who is in the light of public attention or who has disclosed
information about himself/herself through public media. In such
circumstances, a psychiatrist may share with the public his or her expertise
about psychiatric issues in general. However, it is unethical for a
psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion unless he or she has conducted
an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a
statement."
You don't diagnose a patient you haven't examined. You don't
discuss your diagnoses without the patient's permission. And if your only
defense against the latter rule is that the person you've publicly diagnosed
isn't really your patient, that alone ought to let you know that you've
strayed far from the requirements of professional ethics. A psychiatric
diagnosis is a clinical tool, not a rhetorical device; to treat it otherwise
substantially undermines the reputation of psychiatry and psychology. Frank
is a former leader of the Physicians for Social Responsibility, but there is
simply nothing socially responsible about using psychiatric terminology as a
stick with which to beat your political enemies. There's nothing socially
responsible about misusing the mantle of the professional expert. I am
appalled.
Justin Frank: This is an important question concerning the fact
that I never met with George W Bush personally. I am using the technique of
applied psychoanalysis which was first introduced by Freud in his analyses
of Leonardo, Moses, and Little Hans. That technique, applying psychoanalytic
principles to available material, is now used by CIA psychiatrists hired by
the US Government who work at the George H.W. Bush Center in Langly VA. I
think these techniques should be available to the American public as well.
Therefore the APA guidelines you cite do not pertain to my work -- Bush on
the Couch is not about being "asked for an opinion about an individual" but
rather it is an in depth study of writings, videotapes, biographies, news
reports, of an individual.
Dan Froomkin: After his speech at MacDill Air Force Base near
Tampa, Fla., today, Bush was to have met with 11 families of troops who died
in Iraq or Afghanistan. He's done this about a dozen times, all told. But
he's not attended a single funeral. He banned photographs of the coffins
returning from Iraq. And he has really, by and large, avoided talking about
the dead. Some people think that's not very presidential.
You write in your book that "Bush's behavior strongly suggests
an unconscious resentment toward our own servicemen, whose bravery puts his
own (nonexistent) wartime service record to shame." But that's a pretty
brutal thing to say about the Commander in Chief, isn't it?
Justin Frank: President Bush has not attended a single
funeral -- other than that of President Reagan. In my book I explore some
possible reasons for that, whether or not it is "presidential". I am less
interested in judging his behavior on political grounds than I am in
thinking about its meaning both to him and to the rest of us. He has spent a
lifetime of avoiding grief, starting with the death of his sister when he
was 7 years old. His parents didn't help him with what must have been
confusing and frightening feelings. He also has a history of evading
responsibility and perhaps his not attending funerals has to do with not
wanting to see the damage his policies have wrought.
It would take too long for me to answer your question about his
unconscious resentment toward our own servicemen -- probably the rest of
this online session. Too many playwrights describe old men sending the young
to die, making Bush not at all unique. But there is something about envy of
the young, envy of their strength, envy of their courage. He also envied his
father who was a military hero himself. It is a complex issue but one worth
exploring.
Email from Tinseltown: Forget that cue card reading figurehead
George W. Bush: let me ask about someone American really care about. How
would you analyze Tony Soprano?
Justin Frank: There is already a book written analyzing Tony
Soprano, written by Glen Gabbard, MD.
Email from Harrisburg, Pa.: Freud made psychological
observations of famous people without personally observing them. How
accurate is this field of psychological observation from a distance, what
are its limitations, and what are its advantages?
Justin Frank: Thank you for this question. The limitations of
not making direct clinical observations of patients are great: we are not
able to avail ourselves of the powerful tools of transference and
countertransference -- the patient's feelings about us and ours in relation
to them. We do not get to see what is replayed from their childhood
conflicts that get expressed in the consulting room.
On the other hand, I never get to observe my patients outside
the consulting room. With Bush I get to see all his speeches, press
conferences, photo ops, read his speeches, read biographical material as
well. I find that much of applied psychoanalysis is "accurate" in that it
helps us see patterns of behavior and gives us tools to think about those
patterns. It is not conclusive -- and therefore functions in the realm of
interpretation. Interestingly enough, Bush seems to continue to write my
book after it has been printed -- just two weeks ago he denied knowing the
now-discredited Chalabi despite having invited him to sit with Laura at the
State of the Union address this year. I called this denial mechanism the
KWD, or the "Kenny Who Defense" which he used so widely when asked if he
knew Ken Lay of Enron. That was the same Ken Lay who was a chief contributor
to Bush's 2000 election bid.
Email from Arlington, VA: You replied to me that George Bush is
"unique as a president" because of his "pattern of living outside the law."
The problem is, you are starting out with a set of assumptions that are
colored by your political views. Many people would not agree that Bush is
displaying this pattern of behavior. Some might argue that Bill Clinton had
even greater troubles with the law, leading him to commit the felony of
perjury. I don't recall your book on his psychological background.
Justin Frank: I am answering this because you are concerned
about my bias.
I did not analyze Clinton, and he certainly had/has his share of
character flaws. He did not take money earmarked for Afghanistan and use it
to prepare for a war in Iraq. This is not just outside the law but outside
the Constitution. There are numerous examples of similar behavior seen in
Bush. But I am not here to compare but to look in depth into What we see in
this president.
Email from Washington, D.C.: Let me see if I've got this
straight: one can't quit drinking, except with the help of 12-steppers or a
professionals such as yourself? Sounds like more blather from the Recovery
Industry.
Justin Frank: I don't think anybody makes money from 12-step
recovery. It is not much of an industry. But what is important is that the
"ism" part of alcoholism was not treated ever and he has no capacity to take
responsibility for his behavior which he dismisses as "youthful
indescretions". Until forty?
One needs a president who can look inside himself and think
about matters of grave importance to the nation and to the world. Black and
white thinking results most often from untreated alcoholism.
Email from Santa Clara, Calif.: Dr. Frank, A few weeks ago we
learned that Pres. Bush has Saddam's handgun in a case in a room off the
oval office. Apparently he proudly shows it off to visitors. Given all the
negative events that have transpired since Hussein's capture what do you
make of this disconnect?
Justin Frank: I think that the Bush who proudly shows off
Saddam's handgun to visitors is the same Bush who proudly pranced aboard the
aircraft carrier last year declaring that the war in Iraq was over. His
behavior is similar to that of an eight-year-old boy playing superman and
believing that he won a war all by himself, that he captured Saddam by
himself. The behavior is "disconnected" not only from current events, but
from a fundamental understanding of self.
Email from Washington, D.C.: What do you hope to accomplish with
this book? Is it your conclusion that the President's psychiatric
limitations should disqualify him from holding the office -- or at the very
least, that voters should conclude from your analysis that alternative
candidates should be selected?
Justin Frank: I hope to enrich the discussion about our choices
for president in 2004. Until this book there has been a sense that employers
at MacDonalds know more about the psychological profiles of their employees
than we do about the people we select to hold the most important job in our
nation.
I hope that the book will help us think about patterns of
behavior that we see, that it will help us watch our leaders more closely.
And that it will help us think.
Email from Columbus, Ohio: Is Chapter I about Bush or Reagan?
After a week of nauseating tributes to the president who claimed ketchup is
a vegetable for poor children in the school lunch program, and who
unilaterally kicked people off disability until they could prove eligibility
(during which time some people died), I am intrugued -- and terrified -- by
the parallels.
Justin Frank: I appreciate your comment comparing Bush's
behavior toward children with Reagan's. Both were relatively absent fathers,
detached from their own children. What Reagan started in the 1980s (really
in the 1970s in California) Bush is continuing, though the chapter was
explicitly about George W. Bush.
Email from Philadelphia, PA: This is more of a comment than a
question, but I read a review of your book yesterday that mentioned the
death of Bush's sister and the possible effects of the suppression of his
feelings about that. Frankly, it's one of the few times I've felt some real
compassion for him. I also lost a sister, when I was 8 and she was 7, more
than 40 years ago, and it was also true in my family that no one seemed to
notice that I might feel responsible for death. With some help I managed to
figure it out too many years later. (Fortunately, I wasn't holding an
important public office during the time I was struggling with it
unconsciously.) I have since learned that the most important thing a parent
can do is to help a child be responsible for his or her feelings. I don't
forsee any help like that for Bush, since he's already been "saved," but
hopefully your book will raise others' awareness of how much damage one
repressed person can accomplish.
Justin Frank: Your comment is so moving that I want to include
it in my response: "I have since learned that the most important thing a
parent can do is to help a child be responsible for his or her feelings. I
don't forsee any help like that for Bush, since he's already been "saved,"
but hopefully your book will raise others' awareness of how much damage one
repressed person can accomplish."
I, too, was moved when reading about what Bush must have gone
through. He did have nightmares for several months afterward, but from what
I can tell there was no discussion of his feelings -- no place to talk about
guilt, normal aggression and relief, and terrible loss itself. Parents must
pay attention to their children, and I have the feeling that Bush received
little, if any, such attention. I also think that helps me understand why it
is easy for him to pay little attention to the real and palpable losses of
the American people -- from 911 to Afghanistan to Iraq. He thinks only of
revenge for 911 or else of continuing to live life as one normally might do.
Email from Houston, Texas: I'm not a Bush fan, but your approach
does seem like shooting fish in a barrel. By applying various psychological
symptoms and neuroses from such an external standpoint, couldn't you make
virtually anyone look a little crazy?
Justin Frank: Yes I could make anyone look crazy. And I'm a
target for that as well. We all are.
I hope that if you read the book you will see that I am not just
pulling out all the psychiatric stops to "get" Bush.
His behavior calls for examination.
Email from Pomona, Calif.: I would be interested in seeing your
methods of analysis applied to John Kerry's pattern of changing his position
on issues based on the political expediency of the moment. Surely there must
be some deep wound from his childhood that prevents him from developing a
principled position and sticking with it in the face of criticism. And what
are the implications for how he would govern, given this pattern of
indecision?
Justin Frank: I would love to apply my method of analysis to
John Kerry. I think this kind of exploration is warranted with all people
who hold such immense responsibility.
Again, I am not looking for causes as much as for patterns and
meaning of those patterns.
Email from Chicago, Ill.: I've read articles about Bush that
describe him as a "dry drunk." Do you think he's still an alcoholic, or that
the stress of not drinking contributes to his problems?
Do you think there's a point when the straw will finally break
the camel's back and Bush will start decompensating?
Dan Froomkin: Lots of readers are asking about this "dry drunk"
hypothesis.
Justin Frank: I was concerned in the April 13 Press Conference
that Bush had begun to decompensate. He was unable to anwswer the question
about whether or not he thought he'd made mistakes in the prosecution of the
Iraq war. In some ways he gave his most honest answer -- a halting and
defensive one, but genuine. He couldn't think and needed written questions
in advance.
I have no idea whether or not Bush is drinking -- I would doubt
it as he must be under scrutiny by so many people. But the issue again is
about the "ism" part of alcoholism -- the need he has to order his internal
chaos. This need at times borders on the desperate -- rigid schedules,
repeated prayer meetings, excessive time away from Washington, and even
fears of testifying alone in front of the 911 Commission.
Email from Long Beach: Greetings from California,
May I suggest to those who question your ability or right to
observe the president that they remember the fate of Vladimir Bekhterev, who
diagonosed Stalin as a paranoid, and was quickly poisoned by his "fearless
leader"? BTW, Bekhterev would be a good dedication in your book.
Justin Frank: Thank you for your warning. Several of my firends
said that they would consult during the writing but did not want to be
acknowledged by name in print.
I hope that is an acceptable response to your comment.
I do get anxious more about followers than about Bush himself.
Stalin he is not.
Email from Monticello, New York: Dr. Frank,
I understand you learned that Bush exploded firecrackers inside
of frogs as a youngster. How did you learn that, what does it indicate to
you about the pathology of the youngster, and how do you think that
pathology has manifested itself in the behavior of the adult? Thank you.
Justin Frank: There were several articles about Bush's childhood
in which his friends were interviewed describing his having blown up frogs.
This was after rainy periods in the otherwise dry Midland world. He also
used beebee guns to shoot them, one friend reported. A group of them did.
As a fraternity man at Yale he branded pledges on the buttocks
with a hot coat-hanger. This was written up in the NYTimes in 1967 and he
was interviewed then about it.
His smirk as an adult, his mimicry of patients on death row
while he was Governor are all part of a similar pattern.
Everyone has sadistic bits in his personality. The job of a
mature person is to recognize those elements and control them or channel
them in some way other than inflicting harm on others.
Email from Undisclosed Location, Suburban Maryland: My more
psychodynamically-informed co-workers and I have from time to time engaged
in debate as to exactly where our president fits into the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual for mental disorders (DSM-IV). So I herald the arrival of
your book (and this chat) with great interest.
My personal take on Mr. Bush has been one of Antisocial
Personality Disorder (DSM code 301.7) as he meets the threshold of three
criteria for that diagnosis: deceitfulness (item 2), impulsivity or failure
to plan ahead (3), and consistent irresponsibility (6) -- although evidence
for lack of remorse (7) is certainly in abundance as well.
However, I will concede that his association with the neocons
who hijacked our foreign policy (flushing 40 years of multilateralism down
the drain in favor of a "high country sheriff" game) suggests Shared
Psychotic Disorder (297.3).
Then there is a nagging sense, too, of something on the Autistic
Disorder spectrum (299.90). He appears to meet five criteria: (1b) failure
to develop peer relationships (see diplomatic failures); (2a) delay in, or
total lack of, the development of spoken language; (2c) stereotyped and
repetitive use of language (responds "9/11 changed everything" to any
questioning of his policies); (3a) encompassing preoccupation with one or
more interest that is abnormal in intensity or focus (see Iraq obsession);
and (3b) apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines
(see same).
And finally, there is the unclassifiable, but intense, sense of
arrested development. The insistence on seeing the world in black and white
is characteristic of a child who simply hasn't yet begun to perceive the
complexities of the adult world.
You've obviously done a lot of thinking on this as well. So we'd
be grateful if you could help us sort all this out (and maybe settle some
bets?). Thanks!;
Justin Frank: In my book I did not make a DSM diagnosis of
President Bush.
My book is about character and behavior patterns to take note
of, not about diagnosis. It is aimed at helping people to think about his
competence to govern and his method of governing rather than to put him in a
category.
As much has I have been willing to examine his character in
depth, I do not feel that trying out a diagnosis will serve any useful
purpose.
Email from Hunsterville, NC: Justin, any word from the White
House on your book? Official or otherwise?
Justin Frank: No official word form the White House, other than
twice being told they "don't do book reviews."
I have no idea. I am talking about Bush in a different way, but
I think the White House is more concerned with people who have specific
goods on them -- people like O'Neill and Clarke.
Dan Froomkin: Justin, thanks for joining us today. You sparked a
great conversation here, and I suspect in many other places as well.
Readers, thanks for all your terrific questions -- sorry we couldn't get to
all of them. Justin Frank: Thank you for having me. I enjoyed this format --
something completely new to me. I hope it hasn't been too argumentative but
is rather in the service of deepening discussion and thought.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial
control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions
for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
Published by
Washington Post
As a citizen, I worry about what these contradictions and
inconsistencies say about the president's ability to govern; as a
psychoanalyst, I'm troubled by their implications for the president's
current and long-term mental health, particularly in light of certain
information we know about his past.
Naturally, the occasional misstatement or discrepancy between
word and deed may be dismissed as politics as usual.
But when the most powerful man on the planet consistently
exhibits an array of multiple, serious, and untreated symptoms -- any one of
which I've seen patients need years to work through -- it's certainly cause
for further investigation, if not for outright alarm.
What do you think?
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There's much more than this at Unknown News .
Is George W. Bush insane?
Tour recent 'episodes'
and decide for yourself
in·sane adj.
1 : mentally disordered : exhibiting insanity
2 : used by, typical of, or intended for insane persons (an
insane asylum)
3 : ABSURD (an insane scheme for making money)
—Merriam-Webster
in·san·i·ty n.
1 a : a deranged state of the mind usually occurring as a
specific disorder (as schizophrenia) and usually excluding such states as
mental retardation, psychoneurosis, and various character disorders
b : a mental disorder
2 : such unsoundness of mind or lack of understanding as
prevents one from having the mental capacity required by law to enter into a
particular relationship, status, or transaction or as removes one from
criminal or civil responsibility
3 a : extreme folly or unreasonableness
b : something utterly foolish or unreasonable
—Merriam-Webster
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How is it that our deeply religious president feels free to bomb
Iraq -- and then celebrate the results with open expressions of joy?
How can a president send American soldiers into combat under
false pretenses and then proceed to joke about the deception, finding humor
in the absence of weapons of mass destruction under his Oval Office desk?
How can someone promise to protect the environment on the one
hand and allow increased arsenic in the public water supply on the other?
And why does he feel he can call his plan to lift logging
restrictions in national forests the "Healthy" Forest Initiative?
If the president's interpersonal skills are strong enough to
earn him the reputation of being a "people person," why is he so unwilling
and even unable to talk to world leaders, such as Jacques Chirac or Gerhard
Schroeder, who disagree with him?
How can the president sound so confused and yet act so
decisively?
And given the regularity with which he confuses fact with
fantasy, how can he justify decisions based largely on his own personal
suspicions with such unwavering certainty?
Reply To This Message
Re: Is George W. Bush insane?
Author: LINDSAY (---.nas11.columbus1.oh.us.da.qwest.net)
Date: 02-12-05 12:00
Newton,
Although I certainly am not an expert on matters pertaining to
psychiatry, I certainly enjoyed reading this account. I read it several days
ago, and I am still thinking about it. Mr. Bush frightens me a great deal.
Thanks for posting this and giving me some insight as to how my intuition
about Bush may have some grounding in actual science.
Reply To This Message
Re: Is George W. Bush insane?
Author: Amidamaru (141.233.59.---)
Date: 02-12-05 12:08
yep. bush is a madman.
Reply To This Message
Re: Is George W. Bush insane?
Author: mason (---.11thav01.fl.comcast.net)
Date: 02-12-05 15:17
his brain has been deluded by both alcohol and fundamentalist
religion abuse
...possibly what this really tells us is you really don't have
to be very smart or stable to be President of the United States..we've had
drunks, womanizers, liars, cheats, crooks, lawyers, and polititicans as
President before...
I think the alcoholic and megalomanic condition is obvious to
anyone who takes an honest look at or listen to him...he may make it through
the remainder of his term or not..megalomanics are attracted to politics as
pedaphiles are attracted to childrens day care centers...hopefully he is not
just aching to use a nuke...
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J1TE&.#EA`0`!`( ``/_______R'Y! $`````+ `````!``$```(!1 `[
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| User: "Jez" |
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| Title: Re: Is George W. Bush Insane? |
13 Feb 2005 07:52:41 AM |
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Dr. Newto Joseph wrote:
"Freedom is
the fundamental
human right." Please buy a sticker
so the site won"t flicker
| Today"s Unknown News | Commentary | Dialogue |
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Yeah? Why?
E-MAIL ALERTS
Is George W. Bush insane? TODAY"S UNKNOWN NEWS
From Chomskys recent lecture in New Mexico........
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/09/1458256
'The point is to undermine markets by projecting imagery to delude and
suppressing information, and similarly, to undermine democracy by same
method, projecting imagery to delude and suppressing information. The
candidates are trained, carefully trained, to project a certain image.
Intellectuals like to make fun of George Bush's use of phrases like
“misunderestimate,” and so on, but my strong suspicion is that he's
trained to do that. He's carefully trained to efface the fact that he's
a spoiled frat boy from Yale, and to look like a Texas roughneck kind of
ordinary guy just like you, just waiting to get back to the ranch that
they created for him to, you know, throw a cow over his shoulder or
whatever you’re supposed to do on a ranch, but, all of this is careful
training. Ordinary guy. Meanwhile, Kerry is trained to be a goose hunter
and a motorcycle rider and so on and so forth. The other imagery seemed
to work marginally better, but the important thing to do is to keep
people from knowing the stands and positions of the candidates on any
issue or the parties. And it sort of works. Take a look at the last
election. Right before the election people were asked -- potential
voters were asked, on what -- what are the grounds for your vote going
to be? About 10% said they were voting on the basis of the candidate's
stands on issues, agendas, policies and ideas. 6% for Bush voters, 13%
for Kerry voters. The rest are voting for what are called qualities or
values in the P.R. industry, which is, of course, all meaningless.'
Ho hum.
--
Jez
'Realism is seductive because once you have accepted the reasonable
notion that you should base your actions on reality, you are too often
led to accept, without much questioning, someone else's version of what
that reality is. It is a crucial act of independent thinking to be
skeptical of someone else's description of reality.'-
Howard Zinn
NFS Underground2, Americas Army And MOH-PA
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| User: "Komin" |
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| Title: Re: Is George W. Bush Insane? |
12 Feb 2005 09:42:08 PM |
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No , Bush is not insane .
Bush is contaminated with the Jewish Mad Cow disease , spred around by
the AIPAC .
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| User: "amigo cabal" |
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| Title: Re: Is George W. Bush Insane? |
13 Feb 2005 08:21:43 AM |
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"Komin" <veakrin@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1108266128.732682.280840@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
No , Bush is not insane .
Bush is contaminated with the Jewish Mad Cow disease , spred around by
the AIPAC .
That is about the size of it!
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