Dick Morris: Bubba backing Bush?

Jewish World Review ^ | 6-24-04 | Dick Morris

[SJackson]

Bill Clinton has a unique form of ADD — he is disordered when he does not get enough attention. Like a headlight reflector on the highway, he cannot shine unless a light illuminates him. Like a solar battery, he cannot generate energy unless he basks in the outside stimulus of sunlight. And like a cold-blooded creature, he cannot internally generate body warmth, but relies upon the sun to provide it.

Just remember how fully he realized himself standing before Congress and basking in applause, spotlights and public adulation. He chose a profession in which the band rarely stops playing and the press never goes home.

But now, in the twilight of his political career, he craves attention. He needs an audience. He has to have a mirror, to see himself in the eyes of others in order to understand who he is.

Clinton could no more resist writing his memoirs and releasing them in the middle of a presidential campaign than he could turn aside from any spotlight. Clinton has run for office in 1974, 1976, 1978, 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1990, 1992, and 1996. Indeed, the former president is launching his own campaign beginning with the unveiling of his portrait at the White House last week, continuing through his massive book publicity campaign and nationwide book signings, the release of Harry Thomasson's sympathetic "The Hunting of the President" movie, his upcoming speech to the 2004 Democratic convention and, finally, the opening of his presidential library in Little Rock later this year.

The real question is why Clinton is campaigning. A large part of the answer must lie in his neurosis and his inability to function when he is not on stage. This incessant need for outside stimulus that caused him to risk his presidency on a series of affairs cannot be extinguished. It can only be channeled. And he cannot resist mounting the platform when it is erected every four years.

But one cannot brush aside a pragmatic calculus where the former president is concerned. The fact remains that a Kerry victory would retard Hillary Clinton's presidential ambitions for at least four years. The New York Democratic senator could clearly have the 2008 nomination for the asking. But if she had to wait until 2012 and compete with Kerry's vice president, who knows what the outcome would be.

Clinton certainly knows that the side-by-side comparison of his own charisma, pathos, empathy and charm with the stiff, patrician bearing of Kerry will redound to the disadvantage of the Democratic nominee. Even assuming that Kerry could grow, which man, only beginning to sample the national stage, is the equal of an experienced performer at the end of two terms as president?

Clinton owns prime time. Kerry is not even ready for it. The contrast will be telling. Contrasted with Clinton, Kerry will come across as aloof, arrogant, conceited and remote. Hardly the stuff of which presidential candidacies are nurtured.

But is there an even more devious motivation behind Clinton's tell-all psychobabble?

[reformedliberal]

My mother has this diagnosis.

What has surprised me over the years is the number of people I have known whose mothers ALSO have this diagnosis.

One of the results of growing up with this sort of personality disorder, is that perhaps 75% of these people have an infallible ability to detect it and to resist the resulting manipulation.

The other 25%, IMO, become either emotionally disordered, narcissists or their enablers. This is supported by my observations of my own sibling. The people I have known who had to endure this sort of parenting all seem to have at least one sib who has become just like the parent.

To your observation, I would add that ALL the District Administrators of our small school system have all 9 of the diagnostic traits of narcissism.

[TBarnett34]

Although Dick Morris has been doing a pretty good job lately as far as getting it right, I noticed that nobody's posted the obligatory graphic.

I shall correct this now.

[dennisw]

The first paragraph is just too much! Go Dickie go!

[BARLF]

(9) shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

Clinton has an ugly temper, barely concealed under his thin skin.

[finnigan2]

I don't believe Dickie on this one. His rationale for the sink emperors behavior is just too subtle and "nuanced" to be credible. I do believe that Bubba wants Kerry to fail, but when he takes action to make sure he does, it will be far more direct and devastating than subscribing to all the "sucking all the oxygen from Kerry's campaign" nonsense. No, Bubba and Hitlery will make sure that a friendly journalist is provided with some juicy details from Kerry's past that will scuttle his campaign almost overnight. It will be related either to his Vietnam service records or some extramarital affair(s) but whatever it is, it will doom Kerry. The only question is, when will they pull the trigger?