The time has come to ask the question:
Can it be that our president is not just wrong, not just stubborn, not just acting on sinister but purposeful motives, but mad as a hatter – in the clinical sense? Is the President of the United States of America, mentally ill?
Ever since Bush's speech Wednesday night I've listened carefully as media analysts and members Congress try to make sense out of what Bush proposed. For Congress the effort comes about four years late. But rather than being relieved to hear them finally asking tough questions, I was left scratching my head. It occurred to me everyone was trying to make sense out something that was demonstrably “sense-less.” Not senseless in just the policy, strategic or moral sense, but senseless as in “insane.” (Hell, Bush not only was saying crazy things Wednesday night, but he even looked crazy.)
That thought left me wondering if maybe I was the one that was insane. I mean the implications of that, if true, were terrifying. After all, it's one thing to have guy in the Oval Office who's a crook -- we've been there, done that, and survived. But it's quite another matter to have a certifiable lunatic in that position at a time of war. (Just ask the Germans.)
To find out if there could possibly be a shred of proof for my suspicions I turned off the TV and went online and spent the day searching through the latest psychology papers and texts.
Terms like "crazy" and "insane" are not only loaded, but imprecise. The first thing I needed to do was to narrow it down to a particular, clinically defined, pathology. It turned out that was not an easy matter, because Bush seems to have claims on more than one piece of crazyland real estate. The best I could do was narrow it down to a few leading candidates.
I'll leave you to decide if you think the mental disorders described below define the George W. Bush you've come to know over the past six years. (Words in RED are the characteristics I think apply.)
Disorder: Narcissistic Personality:
A form of pathological narcissistic personality disorder characterized by extreme focus on oneself, and is a maladaptive, rigid, and persistent condition that may cause significant distress and functional impairment. A person suffering from NPD displays: 
- a grandiose sense of self-importance
- is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance
- believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by other special people
- requires excessive admiration
- strong sense of entitlement
- takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
- lacks empathy
- is often envious or believes others are envious of him or her
- an arrogant affect.
Disorder: Delusional:
A delusion is commonly defined as a fixed false belief and is used in everyday language to describe a belief that is either false, fanciful or derived from deception. In psychiatry, the definition is necessarily more precise and implies that the belief is pathological (the result of an illness or illness process.) Delusions typically occur in the context of neurological or mental illness. A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everybody else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person's culture or subculture.
Diagnosis criteria include:
- certainty (held with absolute conviction)
- incorrigibility (not changeable by compelling counterargument or proof to the contrary)
- impossibility or falsity of content (implausible, bizarre or patently untrue)
Disorder: Paranoid Personality:
A psychiatric diagnosis that denotes a personality disorder with paranoid features. It is characterized by an exaggerated sensitivity to rejection, resentfulness, distrust, as well as the inclination to distort experienced events. Neutral and friendly actions of others are often misinterpreted as being hostile or contemptuous.
Unfounded suspicions regarding the sexual loyalty of partners and loyalty in general as well as the belief that one’s rights are not being recognized is stubbornly and argumentatively insisted upon. Such individuals can possess an excessive self-assurance and a tendency toward an exaggerated self-reference. The use of the term paranoia in this context implies the presence of ongoing, unbased suspiciousness and distrust of people.... A pervasive distrust and suspiciousness of others such that their motives are interpreted as malevolent, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following:
- suspects, without sufficient basis, that others are exploiting, harming, or deceiving him or her
- is preoccupied with unjustified doubts about the loyalty or trustworthiness of friends or associates
- is reluctant to confide in others because of unwarranted fear that the information will be used maliciously against him or her
- persistently bears grudges, i.e., is unforgiving of insults, injuries, or slights
- perceives attacks on his or her character or reputation that are not apparent to others and is quick to react angrily or to counterattack
Disorder: Antisocial Personality:
Is a psychiatric diagnosis recognizable by the disordered individual's impulsive behavior, disregard for social norms, and indifference to the rights and feelings of others. Central to understanding individuals diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, is that they appear to experience a limited range of human emotions. This can explain their lack of empathy for the suffering of others, since they cannot experience the emotion associated with either empathy or suffering. Risk-seeking behavior and substance abuse may be attempts to escape feeling empty or emotionally void.
The rage exhibited by psychopaths and the anxiety associated with certain types of antisocial personality disorder may represent the limit of emotion experienced, or there may be physiological responses without analogy to emotion experienced by others.
So mix and match or pick one. But any and all the above make more sense to me, and explain Bush's decision to escalate and expand the war in Iraq better than anything I've read or heard to date. There is a real possibility, I believe, that we have a clinically insane man sitting in the Oval Office. And, that there are people around him that know it and are using it to further the neocon agenda in the Middle East.
If any of this is true we are in for more trouble -- a lot more trouble. Because, all the clinical blather aside, crazy is, as crazy does.
_______
newsforreal.com
by Stephen Pizzo
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