The great internet essayist Fernandez remarks in passing at the Belmont Club's The Teahouse of the August Mood "He belonged to no nation and therefore was a transcendent figure of sorts. Nobody was sure where he was born, how he got his start in life and to who he owed his loyalty. All anyone knows was that he was suddenly there."
In this case he is referring to "Basil Zaharoff, the original Man of Mystery," but since Fernandez is always as oblique as he is direct it brought to mind an old definition of the difference between a neurotic and a psychotic:
"A neurotic is someone who is slightly out of touch with reality. A psychotic is someone who is totally in touch with reality. It just happens to be his own private reality."
When it comes to the current psychotic in chief I admit I am weary of the endless game of "just what is up with this guy anyway?," and the countless "personhours" spent on parsing or interrupting his actions and/or non-actions.
Michael Medved, that cuddly little commenter on all things conservative, is always going on and on about this character being just another garden variety politician who wants to be loved. Medved is of the "no malice in here boss" school of political criticism. I'm sorry to say I don't buy it. I'm more and more deeply invested in the malicious psychotic school of thought. It pains me to think that one of the chief compulsions of all psychotics is to try and get as many people as possible to believe in his private reality.
There's a lot of crowing here and there around the infosphere in the last few days about his rising "disapproval" ratings, but they are small comfort to me. What galls me are the had-core approval ratings. These mean that millions upon untold millions actually approve of this psychotic's personal reality. That means that we've still got far too many psychotics running around loose and armed with the vote.
Job One? Reduce levels of political psychosis.
Job Two? Remove incumbent psychotics.
Those are the parameters of my personal political reality. I'll feel much better when everybody gets in touch with it.
Posted by Vanderleun at August 29, 2011 3:34 PM
I second your motion. Now we need an action plan. How do you introduce a psychotic to actual, y'know, reality? If they start at a point where, oh, say, - the belief that requiring the showing of ID to register to vote is racism - They are not living in a slightly altered reality, they are living in Bizarro World.
Posted by: Michael Gersh at August 29, 2011 3:58 PMYeah, if you ignore/dismiss his radical upbringing, ignore his deliberate seeking out of the radicals at each destination, his description of "being behind enemy lines" during his one private-sector job, and the uncanny pattern of going where and doing what radicals would do to break the country, then I guess you'd have to conclude Obama is trying to be loved. If you need more proof, look how many years it has taken for 0 to whip up a jobs program. There will be one any month now. Look at how hard 0 tried to get approval by having a quiet and unassuming vacay is some remote cabin by the shore. Seriously, the people that don't see "Wrecking The Future" are people looking the other way. A broken clock is right more often than this guy. It is a deliberat act.
Posted by: Scott M at August 30, 2011 3:59 AMAll rulers without exception believe they are acting in the peoples best interest.
The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience--Camus
Posted by: james wilson at August 30, 2011 7:14 AMReminds me of Chesterton: "The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything but his reason."
Posted by: Dr Bob at August 30, 2011 10:08 AMWe know a lot of the people who claim to disapprove of Obama now will still vote for him in 2012. It's either that or vote for a 'gasp' Republican.
Posted by: Harry at August 30, 2011 12:27 PMTo compound the psychosis, we had those "conservative" luminaries who boosted and voted for Obama, because, despite some differences in belief they apparently thought trifling, they saw Obama as "one of them" because of his supposed breeding and the schools he went to.
A partial rogues gallery of useful imbeciles:
--Anne Althouse
--Peggy Noonan
--Chris Buckley
--Megan McCardle
I know the list is much longer than that, so feel free to expand it. And notice that, so far, they're all females in my list.
Posted by: Don Rodrigo at August 30, 2011 12:41 PMMichael Smerconish, an allegedly "conservative" talk radio host in Philadelphia and sometime substitute for Bill O'Reilly.
I'd also add Michael Medved, who, while he (probably) didn't vote for Obama (as far as I know), continues to harbor the touching belief that Obama is a normal patriotic American who is sincerely trying to do his best for the country. He just has some misguided economic ideas, that's all.
Talk about delusional.
Posted by: rickl at August 31, 2011 6:07 PM
HOME