I never thought I’d see Charles Krauthammer sink to the level of Fox’s Dr. Keith Ablow and start diagnosing President Obama without examining him.
Although I don’t agree with Krauthammer on much, I’ve at least respected his intellect and his ability to make reasoned and usually principled arguments. But last night, he waded into tabloid territory – and not for the first time.
On The O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly complained that President Obama remained “detached” after the midterm election results. What O’Reilly meant was that Obama failed to seem as ruffled, humbled and vanquished as O’Reilly thought the occasion warranted.
“I don’t think the president has learned anything or even cares to learn anything,” O’Reilly groused. “I think he’s saying, ‘I’m gonna go out guns blazing. I’m a redistributionist guy, that’s my legacy and that’s what I’m gonna do.’ Am I wrong?”
Guest Krauthammer said O’Reilly was “absolutely right.” Krauthammer is a Harvard-educated psychiatrist. So you’d think he’d know better than to make pronouncements about a man he’s probably never talked to at any length (if at all), much less examined. Nevertheless, Krauthammer spoke as though he had made some kind of professional assessment of Obama’s personality:
He’s a strange combination of obliviousness and recklessness. It’s as if he doesn’t know what happened. I think he probably does. But he spent an hour and 13 minutes (in a press conference) pretending he didn’t.
…I think he also is so sort of self-involved that he hates being sidelined. He hates what the Democrats did to him over the last year, making him irrelevant. And now he’s gonna sort of get his revenge on everybody by doing a reckless thing which is to legalize millions of illegal aliens… in a way that he knows is gonna create a crisis.
But what will it do? It puts him back in the limelight, puts him in the spotlight. It makes him the issue. What are we talking about tonight? We’re not talking about one of the most important elections in 20 years. We’re talking about him. That’s what he wants.
Really? Did Krauthammer consult with his Fox colleague, Dr. Keith Ablow, to arrive at this insight? The one who concluded that Obama won’t impose an Ebola travel ban because he “has it in for” the U.S. (and likes Africa better)? And that Obama’s Taliban prisoner swap was inevitable because he “doesn’t affiliate with patriotism” and “wants out of America?” Or did Krauthammer just figure it out from watching Obama on the TeeVee? O’Reilly didn’t ask.
Later, as the two discussed whether or not Obama would issue an executive order on immigration, Krauthammer explained why he thinks Obama will do it:
…This is a man seething with anger over what’s happened. This is a man who thinks that he’s been betrayed by the country. The way he portrayed it in the press conference, as if he’s been trying to drill his ideas into the population and they don’t really get it. In the condescension with which he views the electorate.
Watch it below.
Observation of an individual in various activities and locations can be more productive than a clinical interview in a neutral environment.
It is not the clinical interview, but the clinicians
expertise in the art and practice.
DSM V provides the criteria and assessment process, but the clinician makes the difference in applying the art and practice for a diagnosing the
mental health disorder.
Obamas use of xenophobia to describe another American is unethical and unprofessional.
A licensed Mental Health professional practices with ethical and professional standards.
Xenophobia is a mental disorder in the DSM V.
There is a major difference in call a person a mental disorder than an individual has a mental disorder.
What affect do you think Obamas comment has on individuals in treatment and being treated for Xenophobia, fear of strangers and foreigners.
That is not racism. It is a mental disorder
as depression, anxiety, bipolar etc….
No elected official must be allowed to inappropriately use mental disorders American citizens.
What university did you attend?
Ahahahahah! (wheeze) I just love this. The president of the United States is always in the spotlight and the limelight, for crying out loud. What is Krauthammer smoking?!
And Chuckie, it’s pretty hard to be simultaneously “oblivious” and “seething with anger,” so you might want to rethink that part.
One might be tempted to wonder if there’s a bit of projection going on here.