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Why Bush Loves Violence
From forgotten scandals to "The Last Dick," read the entire Daily Beast Farewell to Bush Chronicles.
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Psychiatrist Justin Frank, author of Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President, says the trail of destruction wrought by Bush over the last eight years is the direct consequence of handing a man with a destructive personality profile tremendous power.
George Bush’s presidency is the culmination of a lifelong history of sadistic practices that he must deny in order to maintain his fragile psychological equilibrium. Since childhood, Bush was labeled a bad child, a troublemaker, and a delinquent. He stuck firecrackers into frogs and exploded them; he shot and wounded his little brothers with a b-b gun; he branded fraternity pledges at Yale with red-hot coat hangers; he mocked others and was a verbal bully, irreverent about anything serious.
What do bad boys do when they grow up? They stop; they change. But Bush never stopped being a bad boy; he only did it in more subtle, arguably socially acceptable ways.
Now, as this bad-boy president prepares to leave office, many of his critics are pinning his failures on bumbling incompetence. The conventional wisdom holds that Bush is either a good hearted guy who got in way over his head—or the puppet of Dick Cheney. But if he were simply good-hearted he wouldn’t have mocked his own reasons for committing our young men and women to war; if he were a puppet, he was a puppet who chose his puppeteers. In my psychoanalytic exploration, the trail of destruction wrought by Bush over the last eight years is the direct consequence of handing a man with a destructive personality profile tremendous power.
What do bad boys do when they grow up? They change. But Bush never stopped.
Bush is leaving office immensely satisfied with his presidential accomplishments: Not merely wreaking havoc worldwide—actively destroying Iraq, and passively turning his back on New Orleans—he became feared both abroad and at home, where Congress and the press have yet to muster the courage to confront him. Now, the financial devastation of his policies seems to be hurtling the globe ever faster towards an economic Judgment Day.
The secret sadist in Bush greets all this as wonderful news, made even better by the possibility that he won’t get caught or punished, and that others will at least have to clean up his mess if they can. He may look and sound uncharacteristically sheepish of late, but his sense of self as president remains unchanged at its core. His primary concern remains self-regard, not history’s.
Evading responsibility has always been a central element of the pleasure he takes in the suffering of others, and his evasion has taken many forms, from colluding with questioners to let him off the hook, asking “Ken who?” when asked about Enron’s Ken Lay, to making light of his cruel deeds, casually dismissing the fraternity branding as nothing worse than a “cigarette burn,” or insisting that the United States does not torture when confronted by reporters about Abu Ghraib.
Sadism serves purposes besides giving the sadist pleasure at the pain he inflicts on others. For Bush, the roots of his bad-boy sadism run deep. As a young boy, he identified with his harsh and often cruel mother, whose inability to provide necessary maternal early nurturing culminated in her withdrawal after George’s young sister’s illness and untimely death. He was a ruthlessly-teased, learning-disabled little boy who was criticized by teachers for not being able to keep up in class. And he was left behind by an emotionally distant father who reinforced the message from his mother that it was pathetic for a seven-year-old to show grief about his sister’s death. All of these factors contributed to an unrelenting self-hatred that made him feel weak and ashamed, things he tried to deny by posing as superior, exploiting weakness in others and becoming a bully. This process of externalizing his damaged sense of self, which he then attacked, became so strong later in life that it could only be partly managed by daily exercise and prayer.
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Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
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Justin A. Frank is a clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the George Washington University Medical Center and a teaching analyst at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute. He is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and author of Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President.
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Justin A. Frank is a clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the George Washington University Medical Center and a teaching analyst at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute. He is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and author of Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President.
Bush is Broken, Frightened, And Plagued By Voices
Justin A. Frank is a clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the George Washington University Medical Center and a teaching analyst at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute. He is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and author of Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President.
The best point in this article is when it mentions how he knows he'll never be really punished for what he's done...even though he's done many things that could be considered war-crimes.
I think that the movie Frost Nixon is really relevant this year because someone should seriously make Bush sit through a 20 hour interview. We need (needed) to be tougher on him, because he is not untouchable.
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Let us not forget that he is also a Christian Fundamentalist that believes he is living during the 'end times' . For him and his deluded ilk war in the Middle East, economic collapse and natural disasters are all merely portents of the coming of their mythical savior, so why should they care or try and make things better?
If we lowly humans can fix our own problems then Dubyah and his fundies would be irrelevant, best not to fix it and just say 'God works in mysterious ways'.
It seems to me that if we knew this about Bush prior to the 2000 election we might have avoided much of the pain and suffering of the last 8 years. Maybe all politicians should have a certified psychoanalysis publicly viewable prior to any election voting. Certainly before we give a gun to someone we need to have some idea what direction they are going to shoot.
Much of this was apparant to anyone with an eye for behaviour. His mockery as he sent a woman to her death while governor, his Blutto strut, and his disregard for the meaning of words - words were whatever he wanted them to be. This excellent analysis explains a great deal about Bush, but what does it say about those Americans who voted twice for this towel snapping, incorrigable bully? He water-boarded a country - and that was some accomplishment.
Click on the book link and it will take you to Amazon. I read the first review by A Customer, written in 2004, a 56-year-old lifelong Republican, as she describes herself, and she talks about this book and why she did not vote for Bush. It's a shame more people did not see the interviews she apparently saw before Bush was elected the first time. Chilling, positively chilling. She talks about her account of seeing Moore's Farenheit 9/11 and that, too, is fascinating.
My own reason for not voting for Bush was something gut instinct. I didn't know anything about him, but there was something about him and it was very unlikeable and, yes, scary.
Would it be possible to do a public psychoanalysis of Jeb Bush, prior to his bid for the presidency?
from a previous post:
"Let us not forget that he is also a Christian Fundamentalist that believes he is living during the 'end times' . For him and his deluded ilk war in the Middle East, economic collapse and natural disasters are all merely portents of the coming of their mythical savior, so why should they care or try and make things better?"
The merits of the article aside, this little chestnut has become the liberal equivalent of the old conservative insistence that every environmental program is really just a Trojan horse for socialistic big government....that is, it's an easy, simplistic, (and in the case of the majority of those who style themselves as conservative Christians) factually incorrect little thought-package that lets someone act superior and knowing and dismiss anything the other side has to say.
Even if there are people who believe this (and, of course, there are, I'm not denying that), Bush probably isn't one of them. The idea that he's a Fundamentalist shows either a confusion between political pandering and belief or an ill-informed worldview in which all conservatives who are also Christian must be "fundamentalists."
Whenever I got skeptical and thought the author was going a bit far with his speculation I remembered the fact of Bush, as he left the G8 summit in Japan, punching the air, smiling and declaring "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."
Dr. Frank's psychoanalytic speculation about Bush's childhood behavior and experiences and how they correlate to his adult character are so weak and ridiculous that they are laughable.
His explanation on how the public was "seduced" into supporting Bush and his policies is outright hogwash. Frank conveniently ignores the fact that a lot of us were not only not seduced, but repelled by this moron and worked hard to keep him and his like from getting elected.
Bush was, is and always will be a jerk. Yet he's a jerk who, along with his Rovian Republican machine, knew how to inspire a lot of Americans to vote for him by appealing to the basest human emotion, namely fear. Those Americans who voted for him and his cadre of know-nothing Republican automatons, are responsible for the mess in which this country finds it's self.
Anyone who couldn't see this selfish, petty, intellectually stunted, bully-boy/alcoholic snothead for what he was needs their own psychoanalysis. It is we the people who are ultimately responsible.
Bush is in a state of denial, he just does not see that he has done anything wrong....and he has inflicted his messed up logic on us all for the past 8 years.
Thank God we only have a few more days to endure his presence and what a legacy he is taking with him...not one to proud of that's for sure!
What arrant quackery! Does Justin Frank not understand that it is unethical to publish a psychological evaluation of someone he has never had the opportunity to meet and spend extensive time with?
Man, Mr. Frank doesn't pull any punches and his comments make a lot of sense. I have always thought there was something
disturbingly off about George. And yet, the American people were convinced after the first term to give him another shot. That says something about our lack of emotional health.
Bush is just batshit crazy. The world would have benefited if Bush had been less rich. The rich can get away with being batshit crazy. Everyone else MUST face the consequences of idiocy, psychopathic behavior or even overt criminality. Bush is all three ---an idiot, a psychopath, a war criminal. The GOP is largely to blame. This is party that has put forward and adored Reagan, Bush Sr (another psychopath) and Bush Jr since 1980. The cold, hard stats from the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US Dept of Commerce-BEA all paint a picture of UTTER ECONOMIC FAILURE because of the policies of these three psychopathic personalities.
Having just watched the last press conference of a president I didn't vote for, I was unsurprised by his verbal dodges and inability to see beyond himself in all of his comments. What bothers me in a more fundamental way is the sign behind him. It reads, " The White House - Washington" . This was changed by the Bush Administration from the original and acurate location," Washington DC" . A seemingly small point, but in light of Dr. Frank's observations, perhaps the American people should be suspicious of an administration whose grasp on reality does not even allow them to properly locate themselves on the planet. My question is how does the good doctor evaluate our next president, based on the same criteria, youthful experiences, emotional maturity, an intellectual grasp on reality devoid of self references. I hope that President Obama changes that sign, perhaps then Columbia, female and poetic, will represent a true demarcation point from a period of delusion, self and shared by the nation as a whole. A pity that none of the complacent reporters asked him about his signing statements, where he ran amouk and caused the most damage.
Dr. Frank you are correct; however, Bush is a Conservative's Conservative. That must be taken into account also. Why not let those peons in New Orleans drown? After all they aren't a part of his elite. Why not invade another country? We are so superior that we can do anything we want. Why not destroy the economy? Middle class? What middle class? We don't need no stinking middle class. Why not destroy the Constitution? We don't believe in democracy or rule of law.
George W. Bush is a pathalogical liar, psychopath, sociopath, and combination alcoholic/drug addict. He's not recovering. He may be abstaining, but I think not.
AND he ain't no Christian. That's rule 1 of neo-conservative. Pretend you're a member of a faith tradition and use it to get your way, the neo-conservative way.
I am a Buddhist Christian. So here it goes. You reap what you sow. Karma. In Americanese, whatever goes around comes around.
I try really hard not to hope he and his band of merry men rot in hell, but it's really hard. Every day, I have to ask G~d to help me forgive and love these people.
so basically what he is saying is that W is a sadistic narcissist?
"This excellent analysis explains a great deal about Bush, but what does it say about those Americans who voted twice for this towel snapping, incorrigable bully?"
Exactly. Trying to talk with Bush supporters in '00 and '04 about why Bush, it usually came down to the word 'strength'. As a culture we revere almost any show of it.
What this largely Christian nation has not accepted is the what Jesus himself defined as strength. "I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword" is often the justification for the Right's love of war as conflict resolution. Yet Jesus never counseled to harm anyone, nor did he act in such a manner.
I suspect the reason George got so much support is because there are a lot of people who have violence in their souls that has not been addressed and so it runs them. George exorcized demons, if only termporarily by creating a sense of strenth, being right, and winning. I think that would be a great Part II for Justin Frank to explore.
I just read about the plan to close down Gitmo. Seriously: thank God.
I find it difficult for such an analysis to be made by a man who has never interviewed the President much less had him for sessions. Just a great deal of assumptions made by a man who has no liking for the President as a large majority of those who have made comments.
I am wondering whom the nation will find now to take out its anger and hate on . . .any takers out there.
Maybe the country should go on a lithium therapy for about a week; and that goes for Justin Frank also. Gracious God, we have to tear people down . . .aren't we all violent in our words when we make comments as we see on this particular article.
Get some harmony in your life,folks
@pumpkinshirt: "The idea that he's a Fundamentalist shows either a confusion between political pandering and belief or an ill-informed worldview in which all conservatives who are also Christian must be fundamentalists."
Um, Bush is a proud, self-confessed born-again Christian. For some reason, most Americans (yourself apparently included) do not know this, but it's documented. I've always wondered if the Democrats had really broadcast this fact during the 2000 campaign perhaps we'd have gotten president Gore instead. Americans, as religious as they are, have a healthy (and justified) distrust of born-agains.
I have no love for this president. But to place the blame for everything that has happened in the last 8 years is blatantly WRONG. This country has a congress. It has a Supreme Court. It has a military. ALL of these organizations failed to stop this fool. In many ways the ALLOWED this man to run wild.
The book & the facts within it should not be a surprise to anyone. The fact that people are coming out of the woodwork saying " I new it" "I new he was crazy, a drug addict & so on" all have left out one very sad fact. The people that were/are also crazy are the people who voted for him not once but twice. The fact that he was voted into office twice should show us all just how dumb/empty the brains of our people are in this country. We have become a nation of red necks & people who have just come across the border & can't read or write. Our once grand education system is now gone & George Bush is the result. When a person who earns less then $1,000,000.00 a year votes for a George Bush, when that person earns less then what is considered the poverty level, then that tells you where this nation is when it comes to thinking. When the South where the United Mine Workers fought & died for the Union & now that same South is first in line to destroy the only thing that can drag them out of poverty, that tells you where this country really is. Yes George Bush should be put behind bars for what he has done, but what to do with the millions of people who "still" support him.. Maybe we should borrow form him & treat them as he has said, "you are either with me or against me" meaning maybe his supporters need to be put away. (At least educated)
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Perhaps there is one consolation, that he has accelerated the spiral of the Republican party into oblivion.
Thank you.
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