[stylin19a]

Just Ted Kennedy

[Quix]

Welllllllllll, this shrink could think of quite a list of DIMRATS and a few on the other side who would qualify, in my book.

more or less.

[TexasTransplant]

I can think of at least 4 and then my gag reflex kicks in and I have to stop.

TT

[185JHP]

What about grubbers like Ebbers?

[hole_n_one]

I think that anybody who seeks, while having a reasonable expectation of winning the Presidency of the United States, has some real "issues".

I love GWB, but to see what the job has done to him physically is unnerving, never mind the unseen emotional toll.

Why anybody would want to subject themselves to a position of such gravity is beyond me.

May God continue to bless you with strength, courage and wisdom, Mr. President.

[Callahan]

My wife once saw a shrink on Oprah who said that 1 out of every 25 people is a sociopath.

[Bommer]

Bill O'Reilly fits that mold

[Old Professer]

It is important to remember what we have been programmed to forget - we are all selfish by design.

[SpaceBar]

Socialism itself is sociopathic in that the well being of the individual takes a back seat to misguided notions of greater social equity. Thus murder is easily justified. Just eggs for the omelette.

[Jrabbit]

Sounds like Cindy "ditch witch" Sheehan to me!

[Rockingham]

Genuine sociopaths in American politics are rare because their central trait -- an inability to empathize with others -- tends to be incompatible with repeated success in elections, especially in climbing to higher office. Sociopaths can learn to smile and pretend, but their scariness also tends to leak through from time to time and put off voters. There is a lot to be said for the way that elections put candidates under a microscope.

Appointed office and entrenched incumbency are another matter. Sociopaths love power over others, and borderline sociopaths are hard to detect and weed out while their predatory traits make them adept at gaining and exercising power in bureaucracies and small groups. Entrenched ruling elites and long-running dictatorships tend to become loaded up with various grades of sociopaths.

Nevertheless, there is a profound difference between political dishonesty and sociopathy. In doing opposition research, I have run across thoroughly dishonest candidates and politicians, but they are rarer than one supposes, and borderline sociopaths with a chance of winning are rarer still.

The common combination of personality traits in political figures is a hierarchy of personal ambition, instrumental dishonesty, and political beliefs that are genuine but tailored to useful dimensions and purposes. Think Jack Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

Even Lyndon Johnson can be said to be of that type (ambition-dishonesty-belief), although his reflexive dishonesty and personal corruption was so out of control that it undermined his ability to function as president. Essential to his rise, Lyndon Johnson's dishonesty was no longer instrumental when he became president but subverted his ambition to greatness in history.

Alternatively, beliefs may play a larger role in a political personality, making for an ambition-belief-dishonesty hierarchy. Think Truman. Unlike FDR, the self-educated and flinty Truman and many others of that era were genuine believers in the New Deal as a Jacksonian government-serving-the-people program.

Notably, Truman's instrumental dishonesty as President often went wrong, driven by a combination of idiosyncratic belief, political calculation, and misplaced loyalty. In a phrase, Truman was a poor liar.

Scoop Jackson, Zell Miller, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and Jesse Helms are also of the ambition-belief type, with but little dishonesty in them and always kept within the conventions of politics. All these men were known for their personal integrity, consistency of political beliefs, and genuine sense of politics as public service.

Here's story about the tension between political conventions and personal honesty. Years ago, soon after Jesse Helms was elected to the Senate from North Carolina, a friend of mine interviewed him at length for a radio talk show.

During a news break, the gentlemanly Helms asked permission first and then lit up a cigarette, with a warning to my nonsmoking friend that cigarettes were a vile habit that he should never take up. An aide comically gasped "Senator! Our tobacco farmers!" Helms grinned sheepishly.

The political subtype that we so correctly despise is the leftist ambition-dishonesty-belief type, combined with a borderline personality disorder with strong narcissistic traits. Think Bill Clinton and Lyndon Johnson, both of whose dishonesty exceeded even the generous conventions of politics and became self-defeating and destructive to their sense of public duty.

As for Hillary, I think she is of the ambition-belief-dishonesty type, which makes her especially dangerous because her ambition and hard Left beliefs would not be subverted by poorly controlled and self-indulgent dishonesty. As president, instead of Bubba redux or wife of Bubba, we would get Evita. That is a scarier prospect than even the BTK killer on the loose.

[ShadowDancer]

By all accounts that I have read, he was a really good father to his children (yes, I know, if he were a good father he wouldn't have murdered people but I'm speaking in the clincal definition). Wouldn't that negate the whole concerned for no one but himself side of the diagnosis?