I’ve posted about Bush & the DSM’s clinical descriptions before myself, so I have no qualms at all pushing this point. I just want to point out that the entire political class has no real problem relating to him as if sane–and this is a much bigger problem.

Pelosi says “no” to impeachment, even though the Downing Street Memo has him dead to rights. And she’s arguably right to do so, given how the rest of the political class has resolutely ignored it (and is already gunning for her).

A couple of examples. I write for an alternative biweekly. I did a story sometime back where I wanted to interview Dr. Justin Frank, author of Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President. I had to go through his publisher and their publicity department. The school he works at would not put me in touch with him, because of the subject matter I wanted to discuss. If it was just to get a quote from him as a psychiatric expert, no problem. But if it was about Bush, they would not do their job. And they told me this openly, right out front! Needless to say, this has never happened to me before–or since. It’s relatively minor, but it just goes to show the depth of penetration of the Bush-protecting behavior that’s out there.

Another example, somewhat bigger. I interviewed a couple of USA Today reporters who worked on a strory their paper ran on the first anniversary of 9/11. The story detailed how Bush had decided to invade Iraq within weeks of 9/11. They had lots of evidence, even had confirmation from Condi Rice. But they didn’t have the Downing Street Memos. Their story was basically ignored in the run-up to war. When I interviewd them, I asked about the Downing Street Memos, and asked if they were going to do anything about them, going back and expanding on the work they had already done. “We’ve done our jobs. It’s up to the historians now,” was the substance of their reply.

They were–quite justly–proud of the story they had done. But they had no sense of something larger they were either part of, or that their story was part of. If they weren’t the least bit interested in going back and holding Bush accountable, who in the mainstream corporate media would? Even to them, it simply “wasn’t a story” anymore!

These are just two little incidents. There are countless more like them. Without this sort of endlessly replicated complicity, the psychos at the top could not rule over us. So, yes, by all means let’s talk about them, and expose them for what they are. But let’s not ever delude ourselves into thinking that Bush and Cheney and their psychoses are the problem. They are just symptoms, nothing more.

I notice that Bush’s jaw twitch has subsided. I wonder if it is because of more or better drugs or a more advanced stage of his pathology.

-GSD

I miss that twitch. That was the only time I could actually listen to him. I heard his Prozac level was too high. Then I heard he was mixing his anti-depressants with booze. Whatever it was…I liked it.

* Superior vs Inferior
* Victim vs Persecutor

In such situations, the paranoid person feels like the victim of an evil force, justifying extreme retaliation, and deals with fears of inferiority with a cold and superior attitude – alway accompanied by the conviction of “rightness.” Cheney is classic. We were attacked on 9/11. Cheney was completely sure that Hussein was behind the attack. In spite of no credible link from the C.I.A., his conviction was unwavering, and was a major force in the invasion of Iraq that followed. There was “an axis of evil” including Iraq, Iran, and Korea. In spite of finding no Weapons of Mass Destruction and no ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda, his idea never wavered. We were right and fighting a holy war on terror. Cheney’s icy superiority has become entrenched, and he continues to pursue a military confrontation with Iran.

Anyone who has ever worked in a mental hospital knows what happens when you try to talk a paranoid person out of their paranoid ideas. You are simply discounted as a blind person [if you’re lucky] or, more often, included in the group of persecutors. The point is that there’s no turning back from a strongly held paranoid idea. Evidence to the contrary is discounted as a trick to undermine the absolute truth and rightness of the thought [which cannot be wrong].

In Mein Kampf, Adolph Hitler muses for a while about what is wrong with Germany, then he concludes that the source of the problem is clear – it’s the Jews. From that point on, his paranoid idea became the nidus for the greatest human tragedy in history – the Holocaust. Cheney speaks with the same conviction, and left to his own devices will continue to push to bomb Iran, independent of either our intelligence or the will of the American people. He did it with Iraq, and he’ll do it again.

Yes, Pachacutec, Dick Cheney has gone crazy…

In current clinical use, psychopathy is most commonly diagnosed using Robert D. Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). Hare describes psychopaths as “intraspecies predators who use charm, manipulation, intimidation, and violence to control others and to satisfy their own selfish needs. Lacking in conscience and in feelings for others, they cold-bloodedly take what they want and do as they please,

The DSM-IV-TR: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a widely used manual for diagnosing mental and behavioral disorders, defines antisocial personality disorder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A…..y_disorder as a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15, as indicated by three (or more) of the following:
1. failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest
2. deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
3. impulsivity or failure to plan ahead
4. irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated fights or assaults (both physically or mentally)
5. reckless disregard for safety of self or others
6. consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain steady work or honor financial obligations
7. lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.
In an unauthorized “applied psychoanalysis” of the president Dr. Justin Frank, psychoanalyst and author of Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President writes in the Introduction of his book,
“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 more, see also BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS White House Diary of a Sociopath August 16, 2005 http://www.buzzflash.com/analy…..50285.html
Ray Mann

“Actually, paranoia is a set of behaviors, and when there really are people out there trying to get you you can be just as paranoid as any other neurotic. But since the treatment for paranoia involves demonstrating that the fears are not realistic, and for people like oppressed minorities the fears really are realistic, that kind of paranoia is Hell to treat.”

She wasn’t joking.

Since Bush and Cheney seriously need Secret Service protection because of the nature of their jobs, they are not going to recover from their paranoia.

As you say, the next two years will be more of the same, and efforts to prevent Bush from acting as he wishes will inflame the paranoia and increase the rigidity.