Crazy

There’s yet another psychology study claiming Bush is a nutter. But most of us knew that already. He’s as crazy as … well, significant portions of the political fringe, and probably significant portions of the world as well.

This isn’t the first study looking at Bush’s actions for hints of pyschological frailty, mining the rich territory of alcoholism, manichean fundamentalism and warmongering, the insistence on loyalty and uniformity. And of course he’s not the first leader of the world to go nuts, either. Look at Rome.

In seventh grade, my history teacher Mr. Dupree told us how the US was a lot like the Roman Empire– how we were living in the glory days and it would all go downhill from here. The first Gulf War was beginning and the enemies of our Nation-State were gathering strength. Probably not the best thing to teach seventh graders, to be honest. I spent weeks having trouble sleeping, thinking the world really was going to end, that we were going to lose a war and that I would personally suffer for it in some inexplicable and awful way.