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Edited on Mon Jun-19-06 01:15 PM by alyce douglas
recently between Dr. Franks and Randi Rhodes. This is what we are dealing with.
Randi Rhodes interviews Dr. Justin Frank (author of Bush on the Couch) June 15, 2006
To download this show go to whiterosesociety.org
Randi: What is wrong with the president?
Frank: I think what is wrong with the president is that he feels extremely pleased with himself. I remember that he was like this in the second debate with Kerry--one moment when he answered a question right and he was prancing around like it was an exam or a test, forgetting that he was president. And that he slides very quickly into a kind of grandiose state that is bordering on being manic. So what happens is, when you’re manic and very happy you make puns like he did with “Roger, Roger”; you feel like you’re invincible, you can have that swagger he had in that particular press conference yesterday, and it was like “Mission Accomplished” redux. It was exactly the same thing as we’ve seen before with him which is when you’re feeling good everything is good, the whole world is good, and he can make fun of anybody he wants and he doesn’t really care about anything. And I think it’s embarrassing but I think part of the discomfort is the discomfort with a president who’s not only disrespectful, like you say, and who’s immature, like you say, he’s also a person who is actually out of control. And when he’s really excited like that he feels he can do whatever he wants. And he’s very hypo manic. And people who are manic--and I’ve known many in my practice over the years, especially when they don’t have their lithium on board--they really can be extremely funny for about two minutes and then they become tiresome. And after you listen to them for a little while they’re not funny at all. But in his case, because he’s the president and this is a serious matter--they just announced today that we’ve reached the 2,500 mark for US dead in Iraq--this is a serious matter in every way possible and yet he can’t contain himself.
I watched the whole press conference, and after I knew I was gonna be on your show I went to whitehouse.gov and watched the whole thing again. And I was actually struck by how professional he was when he was reading his script. It was when he was off script that he seemed to kind of come unglued and get a little bit manic. Then he would catch himself and be okay again. But the “Roger, Roger” thing and the “pretty good for a substitute” thing and of course the way he dealt with the blind reporter (who was very amazing himself, when he said “it depends on your perspective”--I thought his response was quite composed given what he could‘ve said.).
Randi: And Bush was forced to call him and apologize and in the apology Mr. Wallsten said: “No apology necessary.” But you just wonder, when he called, if he said “Can I speak to Stevie Wonder” because he (Bush) just can’t stop. We’ve got a manic frat boy in charge of the country and it’s so frightening to me because this is the time when you really need a strong resolve, a strong president. He chose this war, he inserted our kids in this war, and they won’t change the strategy--all they’ll do is make politics around the policy--which is to occupy Iraq. And so you watch Bush yesterday and you just expect that he’s gonna grab one of the reporters in the corridor and give him a wedgie instead of showing the world how we’re gonna solve this horrible problem of opening up the gates of hell over there. And he’s always doing this--he always makes these verbal gaffs; it’s like his mother, who said about the Katrina victims, “I think it’s working out very well for them.” Do they have some sort of a blunder gene?
Frank: This is not a blunder--it’s much worse than that. This is an example of a person who says when he puts the safety of America first, and he cares about Americans first and he’s gonna stay the course--what he doesn’t say is that he puts the safety of himself first. One reporter actually asked that: “How come you only gave them a five minute notice?” And he then responded by saying “people want me to take care of myself,” “Iraq is dangerous”
Randi: Yeah, “I’m a high valued target”
Frank: But what is clear is that for a person who was reeling in the polls and having a terrible time of it to then go and have this moment of grandiose experience with the soldiers and with the Primer of Iraq--it’s like this little bit to tip him over into a manic state, so he comes back in a very manic, grandiose state. And what comes out when your manic is that you are indifferent in the way his mother was indifferent to the Katrina victims but it’s much more frightening because I think that he’s completely out of touch with his own grandiosity. And the press, a little bit, try to talk about it but basically they are enabling him; they’re in a chronic state of enabling an alcoholic because what they do is they are afraid to confront him. Not only because they won’t be invited back and he can be quite cruel to people, but I think they’re afraid to confront him because there’s another part that applies to lots of us--that we don’t want a president who is gonna just collapse right in front of us. And I think people are afraid that if they confront him too much he’ll have a temper tantrum. Because when you confront a manic in a very clear and direct way--in a steady and stable way--they really lose control and become enraged and I think that people are afraid of that. Partly because they want to save face for America and partly because they’re afraid for their own jobs and partly because everybody depends on him being presidential.
Randi: What did you make of him when he was in Iraq and he did this little visit with the troops who work inside the embassy--Saddam’s old palace--and he started to cry. Did you see that?
Frank: I didn’t see it on TV, I heard about it. He said he was very moved by being in there…but that’s…I just don’t buy it. I think that if there’s any crying it would be tears of joy and relief that he’s still in charge and still president. His main goal has to do with staying in control and he feels very good--he felt really good--he felt on top of his game. So on the one hand you can talk him as being bantering and everything but I was really surprised after I saw those Jon Stewart clips on the show last night, I just couldn’t believe it. But when I watched the whole press conference those were really moments where he was in a kind of manic, out of control state. But the rest of the time I thought he was hanging in there ‘cause the way he does when he’s manic and grandiose he repeats certain phrases over and over again: “pro-growth,” “democracy,”
Randi: “Terrorists”
Frank: “Terrorists”, all those things about…and this new term “Together Forward,” Operation “Together Forward,” it’s a bizarre turn of events. But I think that every time he has one moment of good news he is ecstatic. We see that in little kids, and like you were saying, in frat boys; they get an A on a test after they had an all night drunk and then they think: “Oh my god, this is great, I’m on top of the world.”
Randi: So we’ve got a president whose policies are all about torture, killing, occupation of sovereign nations and on top of it he presents as a giant goofball, so he behaves like Al Bundy during press conferences but he’s Ted Bundy when he formulates his policies.
Frank: Yes, exactly, that’s a great image. Because what happens is when he’s forming policy his policy is based, a lot of it, is based on contempt and one of the hallmarks of a person who is manic--it’s called the Manic Triad--and there are three parts of a manic defense. One is called Control where you’re in control of everything, two is Contempt where nobody really matters except you, and then there’s Triumph where you feel like you’re triumphant over everything and you can do whatever you want. And he shows all three of those things: Control, Contempt, and Triumph, in a way that you really see in untreated people in hospitals or occasionally when people are sliding into a manic state.
Randi: What I don’t understand is that if he is indeed manic, and he needs lithium why don’t they just give it to him?
Frank: They will. I would think they give him things. A lot of times he seems a little bit drugged when he’s on TV and a little bit sedated. Some of the time I’ve seen him and he looks really sedated. I don’t know what they give him but they must give him something.
The other thing that happens with manics is that if you listen to them carefully is that everything they say that’s negative or positive about the other person, what they’re usually talking about is about themselves. So when he said that the important thing about the Iraqi people is to restore confidence in their government, this is very important, we want to deal with corruption at all levels, and it’s up to their government to earn the confidence of the people in Iraq--well, Karl Rove has just been through the mill and there’s the possibility he’s not going to be indicted--there’s no written thing by the way, it’s just verbal that he’s not going to be indicted--but he’s projecting his own government, where there’s no confidence in his government but when he’s talking about Iraq he can talk about it clearly without being defensive because he’s put his own anxiety about his own government outside of himself and into Iraq. And it’s important to listen to Bush in particular--all politicians project to some extent which means they attribute qualities in themselves that are disowned into other people--everybody does this to some extent--but he does it to such a maximum degree that it’s quite stunning to me.
Randi: Well, thank you for this. I really appreciate it. And as far as Karl Rove goes let me just tell you--look in Rove’s background….do you know it?
Frank: No.
Randi: Oh, it’s unbelievable. Rove was raised by a guy who wasn’t really his father and he never found that out until he was about thirty years old; his mother committed suicide in Reno when he was thirty and he didn’t meet his real father until he was in his forties. So there’s a lot of stuff going on there with Rove too. And Newt Gingrich, same thing. But when you talk about protecting yourself by projecting onto other people what you think about yourself…Rove is a rat. Mark my words. I will go on record today telling you that the die is cast here: Rove will only protect himself and you’re gonna see that Rove got a pass because Rove is helping Fitzgerald nail Cheney. And one can only hope that that’s the result here.
Frank: That may be. But I think that your point about protecting himself is one of the ways people do, unconsciously, protect themselves is by projecting. Because they actually do experience the other people as bad and they don’t see themselves as lying unless they’re really confronted they don’t see it. They really see that the Iraq government needs confidence, and when he talks about how he hates the killing and the killing of civilians, well, if Lancet--which is the British medical journal, if they have any say, if they’re accurate--they have over 200,000 Iraqi citizens killed.
Randi: John Hopkins reports 127,000. The numbers are stunning. Well, thank you very much Dr. Frank. I need sanity when I’m looking at this insane man..
Frank: He is insane and the problem is he makes everybody else, everybody watching him, we all start feeling insane because we wonder why nobody is saying anything, or why the press isn’t saying anything.
Randi: Well, that’s a good explanation--they just don’t want to sacrifice American security by showing that the president’s a lunatic.
Frank: I think so.
Randi: That’s the best explanation I’ve ever heard.
Frank: I think that’s why. I really do.
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