from chronwatch.com:
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ChronWatch Forum
Look Inside Kerry's Mind and You Find a ''False Personality''
Written by Joan Swirsky
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
There's a term to explain why the clearly haughty and
self-important John Kerry repeatedly calls George Bush ''arrogant.''
In psychology, it's called projection: attributing to others
what, in fact, perfectly describes the person hurling the insult.
Similarly, there's a term to explain why Kerry, a lifelong
pacifist after his four-month foray in Vietnam, is now trying to
convince the public that he would fight the war against terrorism more
effectively than President Bush.
It's called self-delusion.
Another term explains why Kerry has changed his mind and his
votes on just about every critical domestic and foreign policy issue
in his 19 years in the Senate.
It's called indecisiveness.
Yet another term explains Kerry's Dean-like outburst--''That's
none of your business!''--when an attendee at a recent forum asked the
Democratic candidate to name the foreign leaders he claimed had told
him they hoped he wins the election.
It's called thin-skinned (or intemperate, defensive or just plain
nasty).
One more term explains Kerry's accusation that President Bush
has failed to give our troops adequate support, when in fact the
president has increased economic support to veterans by 8 percent and
increased defense spending by 10 percent.
It's called lying.
To date, the only thing the American public knows about Kerry is
that he is a blame-the-other-guy, self-deluding, indecisive,
thin-skinned, lying candidate.
Is this the ''real'' John Kerry?
The DSM-IV--popularly known as the diagnostic ''bible'' of the
American Psychiatric Association--goes on at length about Dissociative
Identity Disorder (DID), in which separate identities take on a life
of their own. Changing among those personalities is called
''switching,'' which DID people manage with amazing facility.
Whether or not Kerry has this disorder is a moot point. The
public has the right to know who the self-described ''real deal'' John
Kerry really is.
Is he the guy in full biker regalia who rides his Harley onto
the stage of ''The Tonight Show'' to show his macho side, or the Ivy
League aesthete who sells his Renoir for campaign funds?
Is he the guy who uses the ''f'' word in a Rolling Stone
interview to show how hip he is, or the one who imitates President
Kennedy to convey an air of elegance?
Is he the guy who says he's ''strong'' on defense, or the guy
who voted against every major weapons system in our military and
against increased defense spending, after the bombings of the World
Trade Center in 1993, the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, the
U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the USS Cole in 2000,
and--two weeks after Sept. 11, 2001--the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon?
Is he the guy who claims to identify with the economic plight of
''regular'' Americans, or the wealthiest member of the Senate (married
to one heiress and then another) who lives the high life in
multimillion-dollar homes and on yachts?
Is he the guy who tells you that, after Bill Clinton, he will be
the second black president, or the guy who, unlike Clinton, only
spends time in black churches when he's on the campaign trail?
Is he the guy who is a born-and-bred Catholic, or the guy with
Jewish blood coursing through his veins who has taken pains not to
reveal his heritage? This fact was exposed in fascinating detail in a
Boston Globe article in 2002 but never picked up by the ''mainstream''
media. Now, on the campaign trail, Kerry is starting to speak before
Jewish audiences of his Jewish ''roots.''
Is he the guy who invokes highfalutin oratory when he's in front
of the camera, or the guy who tells a crowd--''not knowing'' that his
microphone is on--that his opponents are crooks and liars?
Is he the guy who wants terrorists to lose their war against
America, or the guy who has voted against the $87 billion to support
our troops in Iraq (''I voted for it before I voted against it!'')?
Significantly, Kerry was rated by the Washington, D.C.-based
Center for Security Policy ''among the worst'' legislators on national
security and defense, with a score of 5 out of a possible 100. More
recently, the group rated him zero!
Is he the guy who wants Americans to believe that he will make
our country safer, or the guy whose campaign promises are aired on Al
Jazeera and whose candidacy has been endorsed by the arch-terrorist
Yasser Arafat; the murderous communist leader of North Korea, Kim
Jong-il; the virulently anti-Semitic and America-hating prime minister
of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad; and the new terrorist-appeasing
president of Spain, Jose Luis Zapatero, who Kerry urged to ''stay the
course''?
What course? Abandoning Spain's commitment to fighting
terrorism in Iraq, withdrawing its troops and joining the ''global
community'' of appeasers, including the United Nations, which Kerry to
this day embraces.
Today, predictably, candidate Kerry has distanced himself from
Spain, the better to convince the American public that he is not the
socialist he really is!
It now appears that Kerry--with advice from the ''scorched
earth'' tacticians of the Clinton crowd--is nothing more than a
sleight-of-hand magician who wants you to believe that the rabbits he
pulls out of his campaign hat are ''the real thing.''
Magic, however, is not reality but illusion--cloaked in an
ever-so-thin veil of credibility. Some people will settle for
illusion, but most people know when they're being snookered!
Given his pathological inability to make up his mind, it is no
mystery why Kerry has yet to offer any credible policy that will lead
our nation to victory over the terrorists who have targeted us for
annihilation, or--save for encroaching socialism--any suggestion that
will improve our recovering economy or enhance our education or
health-care systems.
In short, Kerry appears to be a ''false personality''--a
function of what experts call ''externally influenced ambition.''
This means that he is so driven by the need to fit in, to be popular,
to get votes, to keep himself front and center that he'll do and say
anything to advance his own--not the nation's--agenda.
Kerry is not the first ''complicated'' man to run for office.
The history of the American presidency includes many men whose
characters, mindsets, motives and ''track records'' were appropriately
questioned on the campaign trail.
Unlike Kerry, however, few had such a lengthy history in
elective office--a history that now gives the public a uniquely
birds-eye-view of what it can expect from a Kerry presidency.
This is not a man the public has to guess about, unless, that
is, one believes that Kerry's ''inner'' intentions are what matters
and his behavior doesn't, or that his votes, statements,
flip-flopping, explanations, rationalizations, and backtracking are
less important than his track record.
The eminent ethicist and psychiatrist Willard Gaylin could well
have been speaking to Kerry when, in a 1977 op-ed New York Times
article, he said, ''You are, for the most part, what you seem to be;
not what you would wish to be, nor, indeed, what you believe yourself
to be.''
Gaylin continued: ''The inner man is a fantasy. Like any
fantasy, it serves your purposes alone. It has no standing in the
real world that we share with each other. Those character traits,
those attitudes, that behavior--that strange and alien stuff sticking
out all over you--that's the real you!''
If history is any guide, Americans overwhelmingly prefer leaders
who are ''authentic'' personalities, such as George Washington, Thomas
Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan, and George W.
Bush, all of whom took office in history-altering times. And all for
the better!
About the Writer: Joan is a writer and a journalist who lives in New
York. Joan receives e-mail at joansharon@aol.com.
'Election Watch'
Question: Media downplaying Howard's victory in Australia?
Yes, pro-Bush leader wins, back page news
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