From Capitol Hill Blue:
I don’t know what this Capitol Hill Blue group is, though I suspect it’s best to give them as much skepticism as NewsMax or Democratic Underground. On the other hand (assuming this article isn’t just a big whoosh), hasving Drs. Frank and Williams diagnose Bush as nutsy-cuckoo from both sides of the aisle is not something to brush off lightly.
I dunno, man, I’m fairly aligned with you politically and hoping desperately for a Kerry win, but unless the White House has been hiding things really really well, I have to be dubious about this stuff.
But hey, stranger things have happened.
I put psychiatrists who diagnose and analyze people they’ve never actually met or spoken to somewhere near homeopaths and crystal therapists on my “credibility scale.”
This would be true if mental health were a purely partisan matter. However as Metacom points out, the fact that both of these people are basing their diagnoses on third-hand accounts makes their testimony eminently brushable, particularly since psychiatry isn’t exactly a precise science even under ideal conditions. They know about as much about Bush’s mental state as I do about their bowels, which is to say they’re full of shit.
An earlier thread, now locked, on the very article in the OP:
Is Bush going over the edge?
I haven’t seen any outside confirmation of details in the CHB article since that thread was locked. I have been looking.
On the other hand, today’s video statement by the president is problematic
Mr. Bush looked whacked out as he spouted this unbelievable drivel. Does he actually believe anyone will be taken in by such a weak defense?
Aww crap, that’s a new article in today’s Capitol Hill Blue.
Just take the first part of my post as a bit of history on Blues views of the president.
Well, if it helps you any, I ain’t taking it too seriously. Just wanted to get a little chatter on the topic from the SDMB news wonks. It sure as heck ain’t Great Debates material…
(It’s Thursday, I’m just biding time until the Vogons arrive 
)
Well I’m a dyedinthewool Dubya hater, and even I think this doesn’t rise much above plain silliness.
You can find a psychoanalyst who’ll say anything about anybody if you look hard enough.
Still, armchair psychoanalysis is a sometime hobby of my own, so I certainly recognize the urge to try figure out *why * another person behaves as they do. But, non-doctor that I am, I’d’ve pegged him as a borderline personality before I’d dig as deep and wide as delusional.
An earlier thread on what looks like an earlier artcle on the same lines.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=259984&highlight=bush+capitol
Nice straddle there, bro. :rolleyes:
What do you mean “going…”?
(Sorry, someone had to say it.)
Bah…I opened this thread to say one thing and commasense beat me to it.
Well put.
Judging from the recent, well, flip-flopping would be the right term but is a little too loaded, so I’ll say “position adjustments”, I would buy Amnesiac over a paranoid megalomaniac. At least the evidence is stronger.
I’ll go one better and put them somewhere near “soon to be former psychiatrists.” According to the The Principles of Medical Ethics With Annotations Especially Applicable to Psychiatry of the American Psychiatry Association:
Despite not having read the book (which came out two days ago, BTW, just in case anyone is under the illusion that this whole thing is anything other than staged publicity for the book), I have complete confidence that “Dr.” Frank was careful to say things like, “while this is not a medical diagnosis, my expertise leads me to suspect…”. But I have equally complete confidence that the APA will see through his subterfuge, especially since his opinion was not solicited and is a transparent attempt to leverage his professional credentials into an attack on someone with whom he disagrees politically, and boot him from the profession. At least, they will if they are indeed a professional organization with any ethics.
In other news, contrary to the claim of the article, “Dr.” Frank is not “director of psychiatry at George Washington University” but rather a “Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences” at GWU Medical Center. At least he was at the time I wrote this (cite).
I think anyone who believes that God has called him to become President of the USA is more than slightly delusional, although I am certainly not a doctor.
I’ll be examining press photos of Bush and Cheney every in the coming weeks to see if their noses are growing.
I’ll go you one worse. My girlfriend and her collegues are asked to “analyse” public figures all the time. And the results are usually published. And they are in no danger of losing their jobs.
Granted, they don’t ususally come back with diagnoses of “paranoid schitzophrenic” or “dry drunk”, but it’s fair to make observations on speech patterns, speech content, and body language.
I’m just prompted to remind y’all that non-psychologists like Ann Coulter and Bill O’Reilly have called Al Gore and John Kerry “insane” and “nuts.” Surely, then, getting real mental-health experts to give their takes on Bush and Cheney would be an improvement, ainnit?
So has Krauthammer, who *is * a psychiatrist by training.
I’d have to disagree. That seems like a pretty common figure of speech among certain sects of devout Christians. They’re not all delusional.