Politically calculating

I've been swamped with work lately and in boredom found this article on the new tell-all book about Barack Obama.  The book includes descriptions about Obama from several people that knew him in his younger days, including contemporaneous accounts about him from his ex-girlfriends letters and diaries.


"The success of 'Dreams' has given Obama nearly complete control of his own life narrative, an appealing tale that has been the foundation of his political success. But Maraniss's biography threatens that narrative by questioning it: Was Obama's journey entirely spiritual and intellectual? Or was it also grounded in the lower realms of ambition and calculation?" Dylan Byers and Glenn Thrush write.

Obama granted Maraniss a 90-minute interview, some surmise in an effort to control his image. Cooke's diary entries, however, reveal that Obama's struggle over what to reveal has been ongoing -- since his youth.

"Friday, March 9, 1984 It's not a question of my wanting to probe ancient pools of emotional trauma ... but more a sense of you [Barack] biding your time and drawing others' cards out of their hands for careful inspection -- without giving too much of your own away -- played with a good poker face," she wrote.  "And as you say, it's not a question of intent on your part -- or deliberate withholding -- you feel accessible, and you are, in disarming ways. But I feel that you carefully filter everything in your mind and heart -- legitimate, admirable, really -- a strength, a necessity in terms of some kind of integrity. But there's something also there of smoothed veneer, of guardedness ... but I'm still left with this feeling of ... a bit of a wall -- the veil."

Doesn't this sound like a sociopath?  I have read a lot of people calling Obama a sociopath before but have never really put much stock in it until now.  Let's just say I wouldn't reject the thought of him being a sociopath, and I mean that in the nicest way.

Sarah Palin: sociopath?

So says a former Palin staffer. I rarely give credence to these accusations. It's so easy to call anyone you don't like a sociopath or psychopath or narcissist or whatever term seems to embody unrestrained evil at any given time. This particular accusation seemed less accusatory to me, though. As reported by the Anchorage Daily News, when ex Palin aide Paul Bitney was asked whether he believed Sarah Palin was sane, he replied, "Is a sociopath sane?" Good question, John Bitney.

But I was curious. You always hear that sociopaths are overrepresented as heads of state, so I did a little bit of "empirical research." I googled the names of several well-known politicians and likely sociopath/NPD subjects and discovered (1) American politicians seem much more likely to be or be accused of being a sociopath or narcissist than politicians from other countries and (2) accusations seemed to track my own non-professional guesses. Here are the biggest "offenders":

Palin 853,000 hits for sociopath, 478,000 psychopath, 781,000 narcissist
Obama 1.73M for sociopath, 289,000 psychopath, 1.75M narcissist
GW Bush 2.16M for sociopath, 2.95M psychopath, 1.54M narcissist
Hillary 741,000 for sociopath, 768,000 psychopath, 702,000 narcissist

I feel like people think warmongering = psychopath, and arrogance and ambition = narcissists, or if they want the insult to have more teeth, sociopath. But I doubt that any of these people are sociopaths. I can't imagine a sociopath ever thinking becoming a world leader would be worth the trouble. Maybe if something like that dropped in my lap I would take it, but usually there are decades of scheming and mask wearing involved. Or so I 'm told...

Sociopaths in the news: lawyers

Effects of alcohol on a budding, Obama-esque young sociopath, soon-to-be lawyer:

A promising Harvard Law School standout told cops during a bizarre drunken tirade that he would “lie and cheat” to ruin them if - as a future attorney - he ever calls them to a witness stand, police said.

“A statement like that really has no place in the practice of law,” said Jake Wark, spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley, who took Charles Claudio Simpkins on last fall as an intern and will now prosecute him on charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

A police report states that Simpkins, 24, made the threat early Saturday morning, just four months from graduation, as he spilled out of a Theater District bar and into the back of a Boston police cruiser, barking to officers, “Give me a (expletive) ride, I work for the district attorney’s office.”

A proud conservative, Simpkins seemed destined for a future of unlimited potential.

A graduate of City College of New York, where he majored in philosophy and political science, Simpkins was in 2005 named a Harry S. Truman Scholar for his devotion to public service. He has studied abroad and appeared on several major networks, as well as on YouTube.com, discussing politics.

In a post in September, one political blogger said Simpkins “is what Obama could have been.”

A former CCNY classmate gushed online, “Like Barack, Claudio is also . . . politically active, handsome, and has more honors than I can count.”

But any White House dreams may now be in jeopardy.

Thoughts on Obama

Some random thoughts on the inauguration of American President Obama:

Aldous Huxley: At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.

Henry Brooks Adam: It is always good men who do the most harm in the world.

Mary Wollstonecraft: Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil. No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.

Rene Descartes: The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.

William Penn: To do evil that good may come of it is for bunglers in politics as well as morals.

But then again, I am not a huge fan of change.

Obama: Narcissist?

Normally I wouldn't even bother discussing narcissists, given my deep disdain for them. But after reading this article asking whether President Obama has NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder), I thought it was worth posting. Of course I don't condone the outing of anyone on the personality disorder spectrum, particularly those who are empathy challenged. I know Obama supporters will be offended by this analysis, but what I find more controversial is that the author suggests that we have mandatory personality disorder testing for politicians. What?! First step politicians, second step internment camps for all empathy-challenged. And just because some narcissistic politicians have done bad things doesn't mean a whole lot of them haven't done good. Let's hear it for Bill Clinton!