Gigatron
03-11-2004, 23:35
I found this interesting part of a book, which sheds some light on George W. Bush's psyche. Note, this is not an ad for the book, rather a view on GWB by psycho-analysts, which I found very interesting:
Excerpt from the Introduction
Some zombies are driven to find progressive books and smear their ratings. No wrong Bush could possibly do would cause them hesitation. It is as if we are living The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But bad reviewers betray their own motive when they attack this book for its politics. As that early psychoanalyst Jesus pointed out, they really judge themselves . This author is upfront about his positions - they weren't carefully gleaned by studious reviewers who likely never even read the book - as can be seen in this Excerpt I found available online.
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.
http://www.enotalone.com/books/0060736704.html
Excerpt from the Introduction
Some zombies are driven to find progressive books and smear their ratings. No wrong Bush could possibly do would cause them hesitation. It is as if we are living The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But bad reviewers betray their own motive when they attack this book for its politics. As that early psychoanalyst Jesus pointed out, they really judge themselves . This author is upfront about his positions - they weren't carefully gleaned by studious reviewers who likely never even read the book - as can be seen in this Excerpt I found available online.
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.
http://www.enotalone.com/books/0060736704.html