john-
speaking of reading ... a book review
i read this morning.
Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President, by Justin A. Frank, Regan Books, 247 pages, $34.95
"I'm not into psychobabble," George W. Bush once said, indicating that no one ought to spend much time trying to figure him out. Well, for a psychiatrist like Justin Frank, that amounts to psychoanalytic invitation. And that's just what he's done. Tracing the president's character from childhood, Frank concludes that he suffers from a psychic split that has impaired his ability to manage his emotions and conditioned the Manichean, black-and-white view of the world that has characterized his administration. Bush-watchers, and especially Bush-haters, will delight in discovering his false sense of omnipotence, the effects of his untreated alcohol abuse and why the law seems to matter so little to him. They'll revel in the uncovering of his ambivalent relationship with his father, evidence of dyslexia and other disorders, and of a megalomania that allows him to invent enemies such as the "axis of evil." And now, of course, Justin Frank.
-rose |
