Heaven Help Us

Uh. oh. If this is (fair & balanced) personality theory, so be it.

[x History News Network]
Bush on the Couch
By Justin Frank

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 last 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. He wants to remain our President for four more years, and he intends to do so on his own terms. On August 27, the eve of the Republican Convention, Bush said to New York Times reporters Sanger and Bumiller that “he would resist going ‘on the couch’ to rethink decisions.”

Since the Swift Boat controversy hit center stage in mid-August – both the ads and Bush’s refusal to take responsibility for them – we again see his reluctance to examine his conscience. Instead he remains mired in his long-standing pattern of denial and blame. Responsibility is something this president flees at all costs. It is a behavior pattern that began long before Bush became president, governor, or even a college student. It even began before Bush had become an alcoholic (he finally stopped drinking at age forty, with the help of his religion), though his response to criticism is typical of untreated alcoholics.

Bush was the first born child to a family that had long and moneyed traditions on both sides. When he was three and a half his sister Robin was born. It has been said that the nursery rhyme “Humpty Dumpty” was written with the first-born child in mind. It seems to capture perfectly the irrevocable trauma felt with the second child is born: Nothing can put the first-born back together again. Of course, first-born offspring find different ways to manage this insult. Some can be suspicious and overly competitive; others can be overtly nice while covertly furious; still others always keep an eye on the second child, making sure he doesn’t get too much. First-born children keep careful track of how much food mother gives to their siblings.

But if the second-born dies, as Robin did when George was seven, then an entirely new and complex dynamic is set in motion. The first-born often has to disown his destructive fantasies and banish them into his unconscious. But such fantasies threaten his mental equilibrium and he has to do something with them. One solution is to project them outward, thereby experiencing people around him as destructive or a source of danger.

By the time Robin died Bush already had a mother who was emotionally elsewhere. Children resent it when the mother is absent, and Bush’s resentment would have grown stronger in the face of his mother’s grief after Robin’s death. If George’s feelings were never addressed – and it is clear from numerous family accounts that the parents didn’t have a funeral and never talked to George about the loss – his natural animosity toward his sister would have remained unresolved; he would have been left with a host of forbidden feelings that were too threatening to acknowledge, only furthering the process of having to disavow these unwanted aspects of himself. He was deprived of the opportunity to learn to mourn, to heal. In that deprivation lays the kernel of what has by now become Bush’s knee-jerk reaction of denying responsibility for anything that goes wrong. He can’t allow it to be his fault.

It is true that blame and denial are arguably as typical of politicians as of alcoholics, though the latter are generally more likely to involve family members in the process. But blame is also a reminder of one’s destructive impulse; the individual who hasn’t resolved his anxieties surrounding that impulse is particularly motivated to avoid confronting those anxieties, which he can accomplish by shifting responsibility to someone else, or denying it outright. Drinkers turn to alcohol to suppress anxiety.

The untreated alcoholic who has simply stopped drinking treats anxiety as an enemy, and with good reason: He is often more challenged by anxiety because he has lost his time-tested means of numbing its sting. He knows that anxiety is a threat to his abstinence – he fears anything that might lead him back to the bottle – but his years of drinking get in the way of learning other methods to manage uncomfortable feelings. Bush manages his anxiety through his inflexible daily routines – the famously short meetings, sacrosanct exercise schedule, daily Bible readings, and limited office hours. All public appearances are controlled and staged – even the ones that appear to be spontaneous. They have to be.

But when routines fail, denial kicks in as the treatment of choice to manage the potential development of internal chaos. The habit of placing blame and denying responsibility is so prevalent in George W. Bush’s personal history that it is apparently triggered by even the mildest threat; when Jay Leno, on the eve of Bush’s DUI revelation (just a week before the 2000 election), asked him if he’d ever done anything he was ashamed of, he replied, “I didn’t” – and proceeded to tell a humiliating story of his brother Marvin urinating in the family steam iron. Fast forward to the Swift Boat ads, taking a brief stop at his denial that he knew Ken Lay (“Kenny who?”) of Enron who was in fact a friend and major contributor to his campaigns; then to his blaming 9-11 for the failing economy when the market actually began to crash after he announced his tax cut plans; then to his inability to admit to any mistake he made after 9-11 (in the April 2004 press conference he couldn’t bring himself to accept even a modicum of responsibility for either the intelligence failures before 9-11 or for the war in Iraq), to his denial in May of knowing Iraqi information source Chalabi despite having invited him to sit just behind the First Lady at his 2004 State of the Union Address. Putting it all together, we see a pattern that I call the KWD – the Kenny Who Defense. He employs it whenever and wherever he can, whenever he feels threatened.

All his disavowed destructiveness coalesces and requires management whenever anybody challenges him. He becomes instantly wary: Questions mobilize his anxiety and invite that exaggerated degree of rigidity he uses for self-protection. It is not a matter of intelligence per se, but a matter of paralysis when confronted with any question that requires thinking. When there is nobody in particular to blame he stumbles anyway, as he did at the Unity Conference on August 6 when asked to discuss the sovereignty of the Native American tribes. Mark Trahant, of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, noted that children study city, county, state and federal government but that Indian government is not part of that structure. In noting Bush’s unique experience as governor and president, he asked about Bush’s understanding of sovereignty and how to think about tribal conflicts in the twenty-first century. Bush hesitated, and then said, “Sovereignty means [pause] that you’re a sovereign – that you’ve been given sovereignty and can be viewed as a sovereign entity. Therefore the relationship between Government and tribes is one between sovereign entities.”

His relationship to his father makes all the more sense in light of the anxieties I have described. First, his father cast a giant shadow: he was a good student, a fine athlete, a war hero, a successful businessman. One grows up in awe of such a father – and given this particular son’s need already to disown his own feelings of destructiveness, he imbues his father – partly by projecting his own aggression onto the father – as a man of enormous power, making him more of a threat. And young George W. had few of his father’s qualities with which to defend himself. Being a cheerleader and a big fraternity drinker are just not the same thing. This situation can make a son feel rage, frustration, and shame.

One way Bush managed his feelings was through his humor, his sarcasm (not unlike his mother), and his need to be in charge of any undertaking. At times, being in charge meant mocking his father’s power (being stick-ball commissioner while his father had been an All-American first baseman is a good example). One particular power that George Sr. did not express, however, was the important paternal responsibility to help a son separate from his mother. I doubt the success of that endeavor with George Jr., as his father was absent for most of Bush’s childhood. And when he was present, George Sr. was absently reading or distant.

This particular son is driven by the need to retaliate – against his father and against a world full of enemies. He does so in a variety of ways – though the underlying motives are the same. He tells Bob Woodward that he needn’t consult his father before invading Iraq because he consults a stronger higher father; he regularly introduces Vice President Cheney as the greatest vice president in history, without mentioning that his father was VP for eight years; he dismantles international coalitions once valued by his father; he practices what his father called “voodoo economics” by implementing massive tax cuts for the rich, maintaining that deficit spending will revive the economy; and at the Republican Convention in New York, he doesn’t make a place for his own father – an actual ex-president – to speak. Each event taken on its face value is but an incident. When they are linked together they reveal a distinct pattern.

His drive to manage anxiety is paramount. That requires him to shift responsibility whenever possible. He can consciously deny blaming his father for having failed him in his time of greatest need as a child – in helping him both stand up to his mother and to let go of his need to be her cheerleader rescuing her from her unspoken grief. But unconsciously, the blame persists – crippling his ability to think. He remains a cheerleader, not a leader. The inability to take responsibility makes Bush genuinely unable to lead: he can bully others and seem to act decisively, but he retreats from threatened confrontation (he says “bring em on” only when embedded behind the Secret Service thousands of miles away from the battle). His need to remain in control makes him unable to think things through in order to lead from strength. His is a stage-managed strength, something we saw all too clearly during the week of the Republican Convention.

Justin Frank, MD is the author of Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President (2004). He is a Washington, D.C.–based psychoanalyst and professor of psychiatry at George Washington University Medical School.

Copyright © 2004 History News Network

Watch The 1st Debate!

John Kerry doesn't stand a chance. His lugubrious speaking style works against him. However, hope springs eternal that Kerry will correct W's idiotic mispronunciation of nuclear. In fact, Kerry should say, "It's nu-klee-er, not nuke-u-lar, you dumbass." Even better, Kerry should walk W through a first-grade pronunication drill. ("Can you say nu, can you say klee, can you say er, and can you put them all together, W?"). If this is (fair & balanced) elocution, so be it.

[x History News Network]
History Proves that Presidential Debates Matter
By Rick Shenkman

The perceived winners of presidential debates, in every case since the first one held forty-four years ago, have always gone on to win the presidency. Kennedy, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II ... each was generally regarded as the over-all winner in the presidential debates that occurred during the year in which they were elected.

In 1960 Kennedy, relaxed, witty and tan, easily beat Nixon, who, especially in the first debate, came across as awkward, insincere, and tired. As an Atlanta columnist put it, Nixon looked like a "salesman of cemetery plots." Though Nixon made a better impression in the subsequent three debates, what happened in the first was what lingered in the public consciousness, defining him in ways he found he never could escape. Deciding to debate Kennedy, it turned out, was the worst political miscalculation Nixon made that year. Asked a few weeks later why he agreed, he couldn't come up with an answer. He himself had argued earlier against debating Kennedy. "In 1946, a damn fool incumbent named Jerry Voorhis debated a young lawyer and it cost him the election" Nixon had told staffers. But when the networks made the offer to host a debate, Nixon, perhaps feeling that his manhood was at stake, found he couldn't bring himself to refuse.

In the next presidential debate in 1976, Carter easily bested Ford, who is remembered for making the bizarre declaration that Poland wasn't under Soviet domination. It was the first time a gaffe contributed to the defeat of a candidate. Ford said afterward he didn't even realize at the time that he'd made a gaffe. He had and it was serious. As a result of a brief exchange with a reporter, he had instantly thrown away the key edge he had over Carter, his experience as an incumbent president and the presumption that he knew more than the challenger about running the country.

In 1980 Carter found himself up against a real pro, the former star of the General Electric Theater. Ronald Reagan demonstrated repeatedly in his encounters why politicians hated to share the same stage with him. (After an encounter in 1967 Robert Kennedy groused to an aide as he made his exit, "Don't ever put me on with that sonofabitch again.") Carter attempted to show that Reagan was a scary warmonger, but it was Carter who frightened people when he claimed, in his notorious answer to a question about nuclear weapons, that he consulted his teenage daughter Amy for advice. "I had a discussion with Amy the other day before I came here, to ask her what the most important issue was. She said she thought nuclear weaponry and the control of nuclear arms [was]."

When Carter accused Reagan of wanting to cut the Medicare program, Reagan famously cocked his head, in a moment that had been scripted during rehearsals, "There you go again." Carter never recovered from the crack. In his closing remarks Reagan successfully shifted the nature of the election. Carter until then had succeeded in making Reagan's competence to hold the presidency the critical question facing voters. In a few sentences Reagan turned the election into a referendum on Carter's handling of the economy. "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" he asked. The answer was obvious. Polls which had showed the race in a dead heat suddenly reflected a last-minute surge for Reagan. A week later Reagan won in landslide.

Four years later Reagan fared badly in his first debate against Walter Mondale, who had shrewdly decided to throw the president off his stride with a surprise tactic. Instead of attacking Reagan as Carter had, Mondale devastatingly tossed him a compliment. "I like President Reagan," Mondale deadpanned. Reagan never recovered his equilibrium. Republicans had another explanation for Reagan's disastrous performance, the worst in his career. He'd been overprepared. Immediately following the debate, during which he appeared confused and stumbling, Nancy shouted at an aide, "What have you done to my husband?" Mondale walked away thinking "the guy is gone." Mondale added, "It's scary. He's not really up to it."

In the second debate Reagan, now under the tutelage of media wizard Roger Ailes, fared better. Asked, as he knew he would be, about his age, which had become an issue as a result of the first debate, Reagan humorously remarked, as everybody remembers, "I refuse to make my opponent's youth and inexperience an issue in this campaign." The crowd roared. So did Mondale, who smiled. Game over.

In 1988 Dukakis appeared to have the edge over Bush going into the first of their two debates. Dukakis, after all, had been the star of his own television show, "The Advocates," in which he jousted with the country's leading lawyers and politicians. And in their first encounter he and Bush came out about even, Bush scoring points when he ridiculed Dukakis as a "card-carrying member of the ACLU," Dukakis when he returned fire: "Of course the vice president is questioning my patriotism. I don't think there's any question about that. And I resent it."

At the second debate Bush made fun of the one-liners Dukakis was using, remarking, "Is this the time to unleash our one-liners?" Then, after a dramatic pause, "That answer was as clear as Boston Harbor." But it was Dukakis's answer to the very first question of the night that defeated him. CNN's Bernard Shaw asked if Dukakis would support the death penalty if a man raped and murdered his wife. Dukakis, in robot-mode, responded with the dry answer he'd given on dozens of other occasions when reporters asked him about his opposition to capital punishment. Bush, who came across as more human, afterward referred to Dukakis as an Ice Man. The audience agreed.

In 1992 and 1996 Bill Clinton demonstrated his remarkable skills as a presidential debater, besting Perot, Bush and Dole. Perot in the first debate in 1992 had won more laugh lines but by the second debate seemed to many to be a little too glib. When he repeated the joke he had made in the first debate, "I'm all ears," it fell flat. Bush notoriously glanced repeatedly at his watch in view of the camera. It reinforced the impression he was disdainful of the process, which the voters (rightly) took as an insult. (Free advice to all-would be debaters: Pretend, even if you don't agree, that debates are vital to the survival of democracy. George W.: This especially applies to you.)

In 2000 Al Gore was expected to demolish George W. in the debates. He didn't. That worked to W.'s advantage -- evidence of how vital it is to win the game of "expectations" in advance of the debates. By not losing the debates W. actually was perceived as a winner. Gore's problem was not that he lost the debates; many people thought that he had scored more hits than Bush. But three different Al Gores showed up at the three debates. In the first debate there was Arrogant Al, sneering and huffing while Bush spoke. In the second there was Milquetoast Al, now so meek and mild that he appeared to have been drugged. In the final debate Normal Al showed up -- but by then it was too late. The indelible impression had been left that he was uncomfortable in his own skin, as the conventional wisdom had it.

Four presidential debates have probably contributed decisvely to the outcome of an election: 1960 (Nixon/Kennedy), 1980 (Carter/Anderson/Reagan), 1988 (Bush I/Dukakis), 2000 (Bush II/Gore). All four races had one thing in common; polls showed the contests were close, just as they do this year. The chance that history will repeat itself -- putting the victor in the debate in the White House -- is palpable.

This article was adapted from a piece first published by TomPaine.com in 2000.


Richard Shenkman is the editor and founder of History News Network, which features articles by historians on current events. He can be regularly seen on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. He is a New York Times best-selling author of five history books, including Legends, Lies & Cherished Myths of American History. His most recent book is Presidential Ambition: How the Presidents Gained Power, Kept Power and Got Things Done, which was published in 1999 by HarperCollins. Educated at Vassar and Harvard, Mr. Shenkman is an award-winning investigative reporter and the former managing editor of KIRO-TV, the CBS affiliate in Seattle. In 1997 he was the host, writer and producer of a prime time series for The Learning Channel inspired by his books on myths. He gives lectures at colleges around the country on several topics, including American myths and presidential politics. Mr. Shenkman can be reached by email at editor@historynewsnetwork.org or by phone at (206)228-4386. Click here to read his blog, POTUS .
 

Copyright © 2004 History News Network

An Aggie Political Theorist?

The Electoral College is an arcane element in our political system; a remnant of 18^th century thinking. Electors—contrary to Professor Altschuler's characterization of men of information and discernment—are both men and women. An Amarillo troglodyte named Bill Juett served as a Texas Elector in December 2000. Juett and his troglodyte wife—Jane, longtime Republican Women wheelhorse in Amarillo—are unrepentent in their reactionary politics. (I believe that Jane Juett served as an Elector for an earlier Republican winner.) Elector Bill Juett cast his ballot for George W. Bush in 2000. End of story. The system worked and there was an orderly transfer of power from the Slickster to W in January 2001. Life went on. As Altschuler correctly concludes, the evils in our system are not the product of the Electoral College. The evils are in the pork that the winning president delivers to the states that provided the electoral votes in early December. Throwing out the Electoral College will not matter a whit. People like the Juetts in Amarillo are going to cast their votes for the likes of W every time. I think that Bill Juett attended Texas A&M. Alexander Hamilton disdained the "people" as a mob not deserving direct participation in presidential elections. Alexander Hamilton never met a Texas Aggie (lucky him). If this is (fair & balanced) reality, so be it.

Republican Women leader Jane Juett, left, and former Potter County Republican Chairman Bill Juett, right, visit with U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon. Thornberry's chief talent is delivering pork to the Texas Panhandle. 


[x New York Observer]
Second-Guessing the Founders, Dissing the Electoral College
Reviewed by Glenn C. Altschuler

Why the Electoral College Is Bad for America, by George C. Edwards III. Yale University Press, 198 pages, $26.

A Rube Goldberg contraption, the Electoral College was adopted by the Founding Fathers because it beat the alternatives. In a direct election for President, gullible voters might choose a demagogue. Worse yet, a chief executive chosen by Congress would be beholden to that body, checkmating checks and balances. To insulate them from heat and ferment, pressure and intrigue, the U.S. Constitution made the electors a temporary group, chosen in a manner prescribed by each state, confined to that state when they cast their votes. In most elections since 1788, the candidate who prevailed in the Electoral College also won the most popular votes. When he didn’t—in 1876, 1888 and 2000—the Electoral College became the mechanism (almost) everybody loves to hate.

George Edwards, a political scientist at Texas A&M University, throws the kitchen sink, the stove and some old socks at the Electoral College. Electors, he reminds us, are scarcely the men of information and discernment envisioned by the Founders. With few exceptions, they are party hacks and fat-cat donors. Their names are on the ballot in only eight states. When they do their jobs, electors resemble "marionettes in a Punch and Judy show." In the last 60 years, eight "faithless" electors substituted their judgment for that of the voters; statutes binding them are unenforceable and may be unconstitutional.

The Electoral College, as Henry Cabot Lodge noted, threatens the nation with "political peritonitis." The Tilden-Hayes race of 1876 was "the fraud of the century." Several crises have been narrowly averted. With shifts of only a few thousand votes, the Presidential contests of 1884, 1916, 1948, 1960 and 1976 would have been thrown into the House, with the likes of Strom Thurmond, Harry Byrd and George Wallace holding the levers of power.

Mr. Edwards’ greatest objection to the Electoral College is that it violates the principle of political equality. His case is compelling: Since the electoral votes of each state equal the number of Congressmen and Senators from that state, small states have a much larger percentage of the electoral vote than larger states. Nor does every ballot carry the same weight. In 2003, one electoral vote in Wyoming corresponded to 167,081 persons, and to 645,172 folks in California. What happened to the Supreme Court doctrine of "one man, one vote"?

The winner-take-all system in place in every state but Maine and Nebraska (where a few electors are chosen in districts), Mr. Edwards adds, disenfranchises millions of voters and depresses turnout. What incentive was there, really, for a Bush voter in New York or a Gore voter in Texas to come to the polls? In effect, their votes went to the winner.

And yet the Electoral College has defenders. They believe that the Electoral College is a pillar of American federalism, which divides power between the national government and the states. The Electoral College forces Presidential candidates to work with governors and other state-based officials to knit together groups in broad coalitions and to pay attention to state interests. It prevents them from ignoring states with small populations.

Mr. Edwards energetically rebuts these arguments. Even James Madison, he points out, recognized that "the President is to act for the people not for States." At one time, states did have coherent, unified interests; slavery is the prime example. In the 21st century, states are diverse and heterogeneous; their populace does not have a single interest in common. Although they live in the same state, residents of Chicago and Cicero, Los Angeles and San Francisco, Manhattan and Monticello, share little with one another. Farmers, members of the American Federation of Teachers, gays and individuals earning more than $200,000 a year often reach across state lines to ally with those like them. Every once in a while, a special-interest group does deliver a state for its candidate. Should we retain the Electoral College, Mr. Edwards asks, because it allows Cuban-Americans in Florida to dictate the foreign policy of the United States?

The Electoral College, Mr. Edwards maintains, does not ensure that candidates will appeal to specific state interests or devote a disproportionate amount of time to small states. Candidates almost never speak about local or state issues. More importantly, Presidential aspirants spend virtually all of their time in the "battleground" states. In 1996, Bill Clinton made no campaign appearance in 19 states; Bob Dole visited only 21 states, steering clear of 14 of the 17 smallest states. Four years later, 17 of the 28 smallest states saw neither Al Gore nor George W. Bush. New Mexico and Iowa hosted them more frequently than New York, Texas and Ohio put together. Neither federalism, democracy nor good government is served, Mr. Edwards concludes, when so much attention is lavished on states solely because they are "in play."

If, then, the Electoral College is so bad for America, why hasn’t it been abolished? State legislators, members of the House of Representatives and U.S. Senators—the very people who must vote to amend the Constitution—are not likely to be moved by Mr. Edwards’ meticulous analysis. They might agree, in private, that states do not have coherent interests. But they know that states do have interests—and that politicians stay in office by looking after them. Yes, all politics is local, so state officials would like a candidate to visit. But far more important to them is the journey of federal appropriations from Washington, D.C. When the pork stops here—that is, in the state capitals—politicians claim credit before sending it to cities and towns. Try telling them that delivering their state to the winner doesn’t get them a bigger slice of federal largesse. Or that federalism will continue to work just as well without an Electoral College.

One final objection, and it is a big enchilada, bedevils abolitionists. Direct election of Presidents does promote political equality. But to avoid the possibility of electing a President who has only a plurality in a crowded field, advocates of direct election provide for a runoff if no candidate gets 40 percent of the vote. The runoff, Mr. Edwards acknowledges, "has some potential to fragment the party system." He argues, strenuously, that runoffs would be rare and would not destabilize the political system. The provision, however, is fraught with danger. Third-, fourth- and fifth-party candidates—let’s call them Ralph, Ross and Lyndon LaRouche—could enter the first round. Without a winner-take-all in each state, voters might be less likely to think they were wasting their votes on them. These reforms might weaken the already fragile two-party system—which, for all its flaws, has served this country well—and put fringe parties in the driver’s seat, à la Israel. It doesn’t seem worth the risk. Maybe, after all, the Founders were right.

Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies at Cornell University.

Copyright © 2004 The New York Observer—All Rights Reserved