Is Bush psychotic?

[Zorbet55]

He has always seemed immature of someone of his age and experience and too accustomed to having his own way.

He refuses to admit any mistakes or take credit for his failures.

He carries a chip on his shoulder uncharacteristic of someone of his background and reflects an inferiority complex of some kind.

His temperament is observed as very emotional varying from subdued to sneering to derisive to smirkish to scowling to combative to hostile to shrill to abusive and all points in between.

In short, is there something severely wrong with this guy?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Yes. n/t

[leftofthedial]

2. he's a sociopath

classic

[Kinkistyle]

13. Agreed.

Lacks compassion and empathy.

[Liberal Gramma]

3. Is the Pope Catholic?

[Child_Of_Isis]

4. yes. n/t

[theorist]

5. "Fool me once...shame on...shame on you...."

I've been saying this for the last couple of years. If you read any of his unauthorized biographies (e.g. Fortunate Son by J. H. Hatfield) you'd realize that this guy has a serious dark side. He never really got over the death of his sister and the fact that Poppy and Barb hid it from him.

He's also an untreated alcoholic with a pile of skeletons in his closet--many demons to deal with. There's so much to touch on in this discussion, but it all points to a psychosis dominated by paranoia and self-loathing.

[troubleinwinter]

11. What is this story?

"He never really got over the death of his sister and the fact that Poppy and Barb hid it from him."

[theorist]

12. Passage from J. H. Hatfield's book:

This is about Bush's younger sister, Robin. Read pages 19-23 for the whole story:

One morning, 3-year-old Robin woke up pale and lethargic and told her mother she couldn't decide what to do that day. "I may go out and sit in the grass and watch the cars go by or maybe I'll just lie in bed."

After taking the listless girl to the children's pediatrician, Dr. Dorothy Wyvell, for an examination and blood tests, the Bushes returned later in the afternoon for the results. The doctor, who was also a family friend, met them at the door with teary eyes.

<snip>

"Why didn't you tell me?" Junior repeatedly asked his parents, to which his mother would reply, "Well, it wouldn't have made a difference." Decades later, however, George W.'s mother...questions the decision not to tell her son that Robin was terminally ill.

<snip>

The loss of Robin left a seven year gap between their firstborn, Junior, and his brother, Jeb. Fifteen months after Robin's death, the Bushes had another child, Neil Mallon Bush, named in honor of the family friend who had brought the senior Bush to Texas in 1948. Marvin Pierce Bush, named for Barbara's father, was born in 1956.

(This is a very moving passage. I wish I could post more.)

[grasswire]

14. no grief was allowed for Robin's death

The day after she died, George the elder and Barbara went golfing with friends. Grief was not processed for Georgie. He's just a bundle of unprocessed family troubles, including oedipal issues with his father. Georgie was always a failure. Doesn't take a degree in psychology to figure out his state of mind, I'm afraid.

[theorist]

15. Do you have a source for this?

I've never heard about the golfing incident. I know Barb is a cold bitch, but that seems extreme. Hatfield does mention that Barb didn't cry once while Robin was dying, but Poppy cried often.

[friesianrider]

17. The golfing thing is in Kitty Kelley's book...

I'd have to look up the page number, but it's definitely in there. Apparently Babs said "we just wanted to get away". She seems incredibly cold and she's clearly got Sr. by the nuts, so I can see that happening.

Robin's death was a very sad chapter in their life though, I'm sure. It was certainly a very moving passage in Hatfield's book, as well as in Kelley's book.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. Does a fat dog fart? n/t

[bullimiami]

7. just one look at his facial expressions

and you can see there is something seriously askew in that mans head.

not to mention the innapropriate giggling.


malloy calls him "the giggling killer in the WH" it is pretty descriptive.

[edhopper]

8. No,

He's just a dumbshit, dry-drunk with little or no self-reflection. A "C" student way over his head, surrounded by idealogues. He wasn't qualified to run the Texas Rangers.

[lil-petunia]

9. all that. plus the drugs, man, the drugs.

Who's got the straw?

[TahitiNut]

10. Diagnostic criteria for 301.81 Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Diagnostic criteria for 301.81 Narcissistic Personality Disorder

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
4. requires excessive admiration
5. has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
6. is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
7. lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
8. is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

---

Narcissists are characterized by an all-pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration or adulation and lack of empathy, usually beginning by early adulthood and present in various contexts. Five (or more) of the following criteria are considered necessary for the clinical diagnosis to be met:

* Feels grandiose and self-important (e.g., exaggerates accomplishments, talents, skills, contacts, and personality traits to the point of lying, demands to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements);

* Is obsessed with fantasies of unlimited success, fame, fearsome power or omnipotence, unequalled brilliance (the cerebral narcissist), bodily beauty or sexual performance (the somatic narcissist), or ideal, everlasting, all-conquering love or passion;

* Firmly convinced that he or she is unique and, being special, can only be understood by, should only be treated by, or associate with, other special or unique, or high-status people (or institutions);

* Requires excessive admiration, adulation, attention and affirmation - or, failing that, wishes to be feared and to be notorious (narcissistic supply);

* Feels entitled. Demands automatic and full compliance with his unreasonable expectations for special and favorable priority treatment.

* Is "interpersonally exploitative", i.e., uses others to achieve his or her own ends;

* Devoid of empathy. Is unable or unwilling to identify with, acknowledge, or accept the feelings, needs, preferences, priorities, and choices of others;

* Constantly envious of others and seeks to hurt or destroy the objects of his frustration. Suffers from persecutory (paranoid) delusions as he believes that they feel the same about him or her and are likely to act similarly;

* Behaves arrogantly and haughtily. Feels superior, omnipotent, omniscient, invincible, immune, "above the law", and omnipresent (magical thinking). Rages when frustrated, contradicted, or confronted by people he considers inferior to him and unworthy.

The criteria above are based on or summarized from: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, text revision (DSM IV-TR) 2000. American Psychiatric Association, Washington, DC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissist

[psychopomp]

18. I've always preferred "compensated psychopath"

The Compensated Psychopath
(Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig)


Individuals approaching the psychopathic extreme are not totally wanting in morality, but they do sense a weakness, an awareness that something is missing, which frightens them. They also suspect that their love is not all it could or should be. In order to adapt they begin to compensate for these deficiencies by becoming morally rigid.

Since compensated psychopaths cannot depend upon eros, their egos work out a moral system which is fool-proof in any and every situation. The result, as paradoxical as it may seem, is usually a well-developed morality with an emphasis upon the ego's role but woefully lacking in love.

Compensated psychopaths have played significant parts in society and in history. The more psychopathic compensated psychopaths are - in other words the more they have to compensate - the more sinister they are. All the Nazi functionaries who administered the concentration camps and supervised the destruction of thousands and thousands of human beings; all of Stalin's subordinates who, during the time of the Soviet purges, directed the arrests and deaths of innumerable individuals; all of Mao's minions who so efficiently effected the disappearance of large portions of the Chinese population -certainly all of these people were compensated psychopaths.

I am reminded of Adolf Eichmann (the German Nazi official who as head of the Gestapo's Jewish section was chiefly responsible as the organizer of the "Final Solution"), a man who was relatively conscientious and dependable. Not a devilish moster, he was rather a classic example of a compensated psychopath whose conscientiousness was greater than that of most individuals. He loyally and admirably carried out the "duty," of exterminating his fellow humans, but his very dedication to "duty," expressing his own alienation in this world, vented so heinously his hate towards all human beings who were not like him. The commandant of a concentration camp wrote in his diary at the close of the war: "It is very sad that I can no longer fill my daily quotas in the gas chambers. I have neither enough staff nor enough supplies. Every night I go to bed with a nagging conscience, because I have been unable to do my duty." We can see how conscientious this man was. A classic, compensated psychopath, he had a strong, rigid, "moral" system but not the slightest sense of eros. The morality which sought to replace the missing eros turned into a farce becoming a caricature.

Compensated psychopaths are probably the most reliable supporters of a dictatorial regime, the emphasis being upon "compensated." A dictator would not function surrounded only with "pure" psychopaths -his regime would achieve nothing, eventually collapsing in utter chaos. A dictator's subordinates have to be conscientious and obedient -in a word, compensated psychopaths.

Excerpts from the book The Emptied Soul

[TahitiNut]

19. Eichmann = Ashcroft

:shrug:

[Jose Diablo]

16. No, I don't think he is psychotic

He is not delusional, I think he has never had to own his mistakes, thus maybe a sociopath may be more apt.

I wonder if he feels or senses others feelings properly because he seems to not care if he harms others. Either he doesn't sense it or he just doesn't care because he has convinced himself he is invincible.

Anybody notice in the various films of him the time just before he was to announcing the the impending attack "Shock and Awe". He was clowning around like it was some football game coming-up. I don't think he has a clue what some of his actions have meant for others.

It is my hope that one day after he has been convicted of war crimes and he is standing on the gallows without a hood to hide his expression, that I may see the look of disbelief in his eye's when he realizes what he has done and he has finally internalized what will happen to him shortly thereafter. When he finally KNOWS, he is about to meet his maker to answer for what he has done. This is my hope.

[danm8r]

20. This is the subject that got me banned from hannity...

Bush's outburst was chilling. I think anyone watching that, regardless of party affiliation should question if that's the type of loony we want with his finger on the launch button. My 15 y/o daughter started laughing nervously and said, God what a psycho! I think that sums it up pretty well...

[newyawker99]

21. Hi danm8r!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast: