by hilzoy
Via Spencer Ackerman, this from Vanity Fair:
“McCain seldom talks about the details of his torture by the North Vietnamese, but he has written about them in clinical depth. Despite the injuries he had already suffered, upon capture he was promptly bayoneted in the ankle and then beaten senseless. The North Vietnamese never set either of his broken arms. The only treatment of his broken knee involved cutting all the ligaments and cartilage, so that he never had more than 5 to 10 percent flexion during the entire time he was in prison. In 1968 he was offered early release, and when he refused, because others had been there longer, his captors went at him again; he suffered cracked ribs, teeth broken off at the gum line, and torture with ropes that lashed his arms behind his back and that were progressively tightened all through the night. Ultimately he taped a coerced confession.
McCain’s right knee still has limited flexibility. Most of the time this is not too noticeable, but McCain mounts the steps onto planes with a herky-jerky gait. A climb up dozens of steps at the New Hampshire International Speedway, in Loudon, leaves him badly winded and sweating profusely. Because his broken arms were allowed to heal without ever being properly set, to this day McCain cannot raise his arms above his shoulders. He cannot attend to his own hair. An aide is often nearby with a comb and small can of hair spray.
McCain has difficulty putting on his suit jacket unassisted. Once, as we prepared to get out of a cramped airplane cabin in Burlington, Vermont, where McCain would be greeted by the governor, I turned my back for a moment, only to find him struggling. He could sense that his collar was all bunched up, and asked me matter-of-factly to help him straighten it out. I felt the pang that those around McCain feel whenever they realize the extent of his injuries. “You comb someone’s hair once,” his 2000 communications director, Dan Schnur, says, “and you never forget it.”
One of McCain’s aides tells me that two years ago, campaigning with McCain, George W. Bush asked him if the senator would like to work out with him. Told that McCain did not, could not, really “work out,” Bush replied, “What do you mean?”“
Personally, I’ve always found Bush’s interest in working out with other politicians a bit bizarre. But this is different. If you campaign with someone, surely you’re in a position to see that that person can’t raise his arms above his shoulders, walks with a “herky-jerky gait”, has a hard time putting on his own coat, and can’t comb his own hair. I mean, these are extensive injuries that it would be pretty difficult not to notice.
But then, George W. Bush has always had unique talents in this department. What would be too difficult for most of us in child’s play to him.
It’s hard for me to see this as any big deal. I’ve committed social gaffes before, and I hope they don’t mean I’m a bad person. Nor do they suggest all that much about how I’d govern.
I find this extremely upsetting, hard as it is given my low opinion of Bush.
OTOH.
Bush is a very unusual person. Certainly most people in his position are willing and capable to pay enough attention so that they do not commit “social gaffes.” As CEO, as politician, Bush is well outside the standards. Hey, all it should have taken was the demeaning nicknames. I immediately recognized that as extreme sociopathic behavior for any manager or service worker.
I would not be at all surprised if Bush did not actually know of McCain’s limitations, and asked for the workout as an effort to demean McCain or disparage his “manliness.” Certainly you can watch video of the 2000 convention, where Bush tries to raise McCain’s arm above his head, having been informed already that this would cause McCain extreme pain.
The workouts are simply competition, which is where Bush lives every second of his life:an arena where “only one can survive.”
Who the heck put this sadistic sociopathic monster in the White House, anyway? Not me.
The comment section of rilkefan’s link does not bode well for McLame. All french and (insert homophobia), compared to studly Bush.
The sociopathy is real, and I think the source of Bush’a appeal to the base. The nicknames are not merely constant bullying on an interpersonal level, and but a public statement that none of the usual rules and standards apply. “You will let me get away with calling you [whatever]. There is nothing you can do.”
And hilzoy hates well-intentioned kids with ill-thought schemes, never implemented, to make the world eventually better for the powerless. I hate the deliberately cruel, and those who enable them. Among others.
Bob: lucky us, we got a president who presses both of our buttons.
(I hate the deliberately cruel too. If I thought enough of Bush that my views about him could rise to the level of hatred, they probably would.)
Certainly you can watch video of the 2000 convention, where Bush tries to raise McCain’s arm above his head, having been informed already that this would cause McCain extreme pain.
Is this true? That’s awful — either cruel, or really astoundingly thoughtless.
Is this true? That’s awful — either cruel, or really astoundingly thoughtless.
LB, this is the same guy who used to blow up frogs by putting firecrackers up their asses, for grins and giggles. The same guy who couldn’t be bothered to visit his own daughter in the hospital after she had surgery. The same guy who gets a chuckle out of signing death warrants. The same guy who made a comedy routine out of looking for non-existant WMDs, while US troops looking for them were getting killed.
“Sociopath” says it quite well.
Bush was merely being clueless. If you’re looking for appalling lack of empathy, look at McCain, who, despite experiencing the horror of torture firsthand, went on to sponsor the Military Commissions Act. Of the millions of Americans who have become complicit in this administration’s atrocities, precious few are so intimately familiar with the hard reality of those atrocities as McCain, and fewer still have done more to enable them. More horrifying than Bush’s casual disinterest is McCain’s knowing rejection of basic humanity in the name of political ambition.
“Bush was merely being clueless.”
I am not buying this, and haven’t for years. I was glad to see the title of hilzoy’s post, which definitely is not “thoughtless and igonorant” “Lack of empathy” can sometimes be indifference, but we have ample evidence of deliberate and near constant cruelty. Larry Lindsay. The doorman. Jim Webb and his son.
The simple matter of a boss who sits thru policy meetings silent and stonefaced. He doesn’t doodle, do crosswords, talk on his cellphone. This is not some who is bored and careless. This is someone who enjoys seeing his subordinates sweat blood, as they look for feedback and reaction and get nothing. A sadist.
Y’all are far more social that I ever have been, and probably understand this behavior better than I. If aa faculty dept head sat silently staring in meetings, week after week, well you tell me what you would think.
PS: I really did not, and do not, want to start a fight with hilzoy, here and now. So I apologize for the characterization of her interesting moral sentiment in a previous thread, if she considers it a mischararacterization. The burn has just been creeping up on me, and I slipped.
It’s not just demeaning nicknames for people who have no choice but to put up with them. It’s face clasping (Cuellar, Pombo, some other rep), bald head rubbing (numerous examples), surprise shoulder massaging (Merkel), kissing (Lieberman). And then there’s the lovely example of empathy at the military hospital a year ago.
Everyone knows about McCain’s treatment as a POW, but is there any evidence to suggest that Bush knew the extent of his injuries? I didn’t. Here we have a 10,000-word piece on McCain, yet the main thrust here still comes back to Bush. Always Bush. It feels like just another big, fat snipe hunt. I’m sorry I wasted my time.
Hey, Charles: (good to see you back, btw!) – how on Earth, in the year 2007, can you seriously type a line like:
“…is there any evidence to suggest that Bush knew the extent of his injuries?” – when referring to Senator John McCain? Not just some obscure Arizona poltico, but John Freakin’ McCain! -whose torture and maltreatment at the hands of the North Vietnamese is legendary: and one thing virtually anyone who has even the least interest in American politcs ought to know. Whether you knew all the details of McCain’s injuries or not, if a writer for Vanity Fair can find them out, then it shouldn’t be too hard for the White House staff to do the same.
And yes, BD: it does “still [come] back to Bush”. He IS, after all the President of the United States – and, apparently a total asshole besides.
Charles: I tried to address that point in my post. If McCain’s injuries were non-obvious, I would not expect Bush to have picked up on them. But they are.
And there is always the Jim Webb story that Bob alluded to above, in which Bush was rude to Jim Webb about his son, after having been told that his son had just missed being killed shortly before.
I’m not up on the definition of sociopath, so I won’t use that term, but ‘missing something really significant in the empathy department’ clearly fits.
CB has a point. You never saw conservatives get this obsessed with the Clintons, to be sure.
Sociopath ..from Wikipedia
Intro:”Antisocial personality disorder (abbreviated APD or ASPD) is a psychiatric diagnosis in the DSM-IV-TR recognizable by the disordered individual’s impulsive behavior, disregard for social norms, and indifference to the rights and feelings of others”
Diagnostic criteria (DSM-IV-TR)
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV, a widely used manual for diagnosing mental and behavioral disorders, defines antisocial personality disorder as a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15, as indicated by three (or more) of the following:
failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest
deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
impulsivity or failure to plan ahead
irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated fights or assaults (both physically or mentally)
reckless disregard for safety of self or others
consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain steady work or honor financial obligations
lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another
The manual lists the following additional necessary criteria:
The individual is at least 18 years of age.
There is evidence of conduct disorder with onset before age 15 years.
The occurrence of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of Schizophrenia or a Manic Episode
…
FWIW, and since I was there, I have been repeatedly and consistently diagnosed as Borderline, a different anti-social pathology. Symptoms have diminished with age and life-management.
If you’re looking for appalling lack of empathy, look at McCain, who, despite experiencing the horror of torture firsthand, went on to sponsor the Military Commissions Act
Well, sure. He thinks he knows that torture works. Think of it as being like some German general in the 1920s, who decides that what the Reichswehr needs is tanks, because it was tanks that broke the German lines in 1918; or a British admiral in the 1950s advocating submarines, because he knew how effective the U-boats were. McCain knows that when he was tortured, he broke, and gave away all the information he knew; so he assumes (wrongly) that everyone else would be the same.
McCain knows that when he was tortured, he broke, and gave away all the information he knew
My impression was that he gave a confession of whatever they asked for, which is a very different thing when the point is to get reliable information.
Jay,
I knew that McCain was badly injured during his stay at the Hanoi Hilton. Having followed McCain since the mid-1990s and without hearing any information otherwise, I thought he had more or less fully recovered from his injuries. I didn’t know he was so debilitated until I read the VF article. I suggest that it could possible that the president also did not possess this knowledge, even after joining McCain at a few campaign stops. It’s not like they were ever bosom buddies, and they certainly couldn’t swap war stories or compare war injuries.
Hil,
What irritates me is that the only thing you found post-worthy in a decent article on McCain was a tangential paragraph on Bush. It looks to me like you’re being a bit obsessive about our president, and it doesn’t look like a healthy obsession. You are speculating about what Bush knows or doesn’t know, presuming that Bush traveled around with McCain in the same fashion as one of McCain’s aides, ready to comb the Senator’s hair if a lock fell out of place. I think you’re trying to extract way too much out of a passing paragraph, and I truly am disappointed that you steered the direction of your post from the real subject of the VF piece to once again chosing the well-trod path of bashing your chief political adversary. That said, I am glad you pointed us to the VF article. If anything, I find myself more favorably inclined toward McCain.
McCain’s injuries must be well known to any politico, and when he was running for the nomination earlier all the major newspapers and magazines must have mentioned his health in their articles. McCain was Bush’s major opponent in the 2000 primaries. Do you really think that Bush and his handlers didn’t know the extent of McCain’s injuries then? And since then Bush should know even more about McCain, as they were campaigning for Republicans together at the time of the incident. So your choice is a)Bush is incredibly oblivious or b)deliberatly being a frat boy ass. (Or in the words of Grandpa Simpson, a little from column a, a little from column b.)
and they certainly couldn’t swap war stories…
Heh. Indeed.
Charles,
This is OT, but the Iraqi Interior Ministry has just acknowledged the existence of police captain Jamil Gholaiem Hussein assigned to the Khadra police station.
You’ve written about this here.
Thoughts?
Is Bush a Sociopath actual word used in an extended interview between Buzzflash and Dr Justin M. Frank, MD. Dr Frank is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst and author of Bush On The Couch The interview was on 12/27/2006. Dr Frank thinks Bush is incompetent, and must be removed, even tho it gives us Cheney.
via Giliard
I had heard of the book, but was not familiar with it.
You are speculating about what Bush knows or doesn’t know,
Yes, but some speculations are better grounded than others. If Ackerman easily noticed McCain’s physical limitations, it’s fair to surmise that Bush should have.
Meanwhile, everyone talk about sociopaths all you want. The term I would use is simpler: “bully.”
“The term I would use is simpler: “bully.”
I don’t think “bully” works as a medical condition justifying the invocation of the 25th Amendment. Which is very unikely, but adopting a meme of, rather than a just a bad person, “Bush is Clinically Insane, and why isn’t the Cabinet doing it’s duty” is a very attractive strategy.
Congress should ask that Bush be interviewed by a three person panel of psychiatrists.
There are bullies and there are bullies, though. This particular phenomenon looks to be what I used to call the sociopathy of privilege: someone who was raised without understandings of consequence, and hence never developed a conscience. That’s armchair psychobabble, however, and unlike Bob I don’t think the 25th Amendment could (or should) be used to remove Bush. Impeach him for criminal negligence if that’s your bag, but don’t hang a spurious charge of mental illness on him; it’s both dishonest and far too lenient to him and his.
The sociopathy of privilege? Perhaps we could call it Zanzinger’s disease.
Just in case anyone doesn’t know about William Zanzinger, a cite (near the bottom of the post.)
And another cite. I didn’t even know he was a real person, let alone that he was still alive.
One of my sister’s Shakespeare profs used that song to teach his students about meter.
I always liked Dylan–my parents raised me on hippie music, my husband likes it too, and I’m basically a complete a sucker for acoustic guitar–but the lyrics didn’t really start getting to me until a few years ago, when they all started seeming to have been ripped from the headlines.
McCain knows that when he was tortured, he broke, and gave away all the information he knew
trilobite: My impression was that he gave a confession of whatever they asked for, which is a very different thing when the point is to get reliable information.
Well, that’s certainly what McCain tells everyone. He would say that, wouldn’t he?
But we have two objectively true data points: 1. McCain was captured and interrogated under torture by the North Vietnamese. 2. McCain voted in favour of interrogation under torture as an investigative technique.
So either a) McCain didn’t break, and voted for torture despite his own personal experience, which showed him that torture is not a reliable interrogation technique or b) McCain broke and gave up everything he had, and later voted for torture because he knows (or thinks he knows, generalising from his own personal experience) that it works.
Now, in a) McCain’s vote is immoral, because torture is cruel, and stupid, because it doesn’t work.
In b), however, McCain is being hard-nosed, but both logical and arguably moral in a greatest-good sort of way.
Ajay, the presumption of morality is one McCain’s forfeited. After all, he voluntarily campaigned on behalf of the man whose campaign had held him up for vile slander not long before – he has no reliable sense of personal honor, and is willing to do what he thinks will work to get him power. Voting for torture because he think it would be good for his rep wouldn’t be in the slightest removed from other steps he’s taken in recent years.
More evidence about St. McCain’s morality can be found here and here.
Bruce- very true. Two other scenarios:
Yours, which I will call a’), in which he cynically votes for torture, knowing it to be immoral and stupid, in order to increase his popularity among the immoral and stupid;
and
a”), in which he reasons that torture didn’t work on him because he’s a heroically tough and fearless superman, but would probably work on inferior people such as terror suspects and basically all non-Navy aviators; this makes his vote immoral and stupid but still logical.
Both actually seem quite plausible.
I think you may be missing something. When we say torture doesn’t work we mean it doesn’t get trustworthy information. But torture does have certain reliable effects, one of which is that it drives the professionals out of your justice system. I can think of a few reasons Republicans might like that idea.
McCains physical problems have been common knowledge for years both in and out of Washington.
Re the Bush comments,well all I have to say on the matter is that this country elected an imbecile on two occasions..and the republicans are shouting about Obama’s lack of experience????
They need to just shut up.