March 09, 2004
A Healthy Shrub?
HOWARD DEAN ENCOUNTERS THE BUSH CEREBELLUM--
Don't know how many of you read Tom Oliphant yesterday, but he ended his column on the shrub's credibility with this direct quote: "God loves you and I love you. And you can count on the both of us as a powerful message that people who wonder about the future can hear."
The import of this quote was sort of hidden by the fact that Oliphant split the quote into two parts and then ended his column with "Huh?"
OK, that's the first thing. The second thing that obviously stuck was that video ginny directed us to where the faces of GWB are given the bodies of a bunch of girls in somewhat erotic poses. Perhaps because I'm female, the bodies didn't interest me much, but the many faces of George were startling. I recognize that they are all his, but taken together what they say to me is that a person who makes such faces is perhaps a bit insane.
Now, when you put that together with that cryptic comment by Paul O'Neill about "a blind man in a room full of deaf people," what do you get?
That description of Cabinet meetings has always bothered me because it didn't make any sense. Now what I think O'Neill meant was that GWB can't see himself and the people around him can't hear that he's, let's say, mentally incapacitated.
Are there any psychiatrists out there? What does one do when a person suffering from megalomania is actually the leader of the most powerful nation on earth? This isn't just a question of the emperor having no clothes.
Maybe my brain has sprung a gasket, but I sort of doubt it because at this point I'm not convinced either way. I just think it's something that has to be considered.
Posted by Monica Smith at March 8, 2004 09:37 AM
In the interest of full disclosure, I left something out of the previous post and that is that I know from experience that it is very difficult to recognize mental illness, such as manic depression. While the depression part is somewhat easier in one sense, because it's more obvious, it's deceptive because those who are close to the individual find the down side easier to live with--not as much energy needing to be expended.
The up swing is more difficult to recognize because, if one discounts the false premise on which all the action towards a particular goal is based, the agenda is entirely logical and consistent. Once a plan has been committed to, there's no real reason to stop and ask, why not?
Where the real problem comes from is that the people who have been sucked into an insane project are reluctant to get out because to do so would be to admit that they were giving aid and comfort to a ........ (can't bring myself to say it)
Posted by Monica Smith at March 8, 2004 10:12 AM
What I want to know now is the Rove machine intentionally putting out campaign material that is going to drop the polls into the cellar and give them a reason to replace the head of the ticket without having to admit that there's been a real problem, as there obviously was, in retrospect, with Reagan?
Has somebody decided to let Bush be Bush until he self-destructs?
It would be some comfort to think that somebody was concerned about correcting a big mistake. But, if they did, should the people who have been covering it up get away with it again?
Posted by Monica Smith at March 8, 2004 10:22 AM