Monday, January 8, 2007

We Have a Sociopath as President

Like, DUH! A BuzzFlash interview with Justin A. Frank MD, author of "Bush on the Couch":

I think what he does is he turns everybody who disagrees with him into his father. It doesn't matter whether it's actually the concrete representation of his father, like Baker, or the voters who vote against staying in Iraq. We have become his father. We are the people he is now defying. He will turn everybody, any authority, anybody who disagrees with him, into a father figure who he'd have to defy. -- Justin A. Frank, M.D.

A sociopath is someone (to grossly generalize) who exhibits external and surface empathy and amiability, but internally cannot actually empathize with the pain and suffering of others. In fact, a sociopath may take hidden pleasure in being able to cause emotional distress, suffering, and even death to others, while -- on a day to day basis -- appearing as Mr. Affability.

That, you might say, fits Bush to a "T." And that, you might say, is why he is willing to have everyone sacrifice for his own sociopathological "goals" (as unarticulated as they may be to even Bush) except for himself, his family, and friends.

We have a sociopath who has his hands on the steering wheel of America -- and that is a very dangerous thing indeed.

That's just part of the lead-in. Interview follows.

BuzzFlash: But he was quoted as saying, even if everyone is against him except Laura and his dog, he would continue. It struck me that almost everything he does seems to be distilled to this statement -- which is: I can't be wrong.

Justin A. Frank, M.D.: Right. He is being consistent. He is essentially saying that he can't be wrong and he is not ever going to be proven wrong. What seems like dithering or failure to react to the Baker Commission, is much more of a direct reaction, which is a way of ignoring it completely. He is very honest when he says I'm not going to change. He said that to Tim Russert in 2004. He also said that a couple of months ago, that if everybody in the world disagreed with him, he would sort of stay with Laura and his dog, and that that would be that. He is not going to change.

In his Wednesday press conference, he started talking about bipartisan behavior, but he tried to reshape what seemed to me to be a voter mandate about getting out of Iraq, or changing course, into a message supporting his own needs, and he's always done that.

It comes down to his psychic survival. It's the fear of being wrong. It's the fear of shame and humiliation at needing other people. It's a fear of dependency, like we were talking about earlier about the antipathy towards psychoanalysis. He is determined to never be wrong, and to never make a mistake, because shame is a terrible thing for him.

Well, that's just too goddam bad. The collapse of the United States will be a terrible thing for the rest of us, but since Bush can't make a mistake, I guess it'll be our own goddam fault.

Don't worry. He'll blame everyone, anyone, but himself.

It'll be the fault in part of the teeny-brained majority that actually sort of elected him in 2004. You're going to sow what you reaped.

And so will the rest of us. Thanks again, assholes.

I know crazy people. There's nothing wrong with being crazy, but when you combine crazy with evilness and stubbornness and a parallel universe in the most powerful office in the world, no good is going to come of it, as we are seeing.

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