[Steve_Seattle]

"Hitler, had been expelled from Catholic school and then blamed the Jews because he couldn’t get into art school. He simply wasn’t good enough . . . "

Actually, I've seen a number of Hitler's paintings, and in my opinion they are very respectable - mostly paintings of public buildings and urban street scenes. He probably could have been a magazine or advertising illustrator, and the world would have been better off if he had.

[livius]

Hitler wanted to be a fine artist - he was okay just doing standard stuff, but he thought he was too “special” to be a commercial artist. He had a somehwat odd family background, but obviously not everybody with an odd family background turns into a sociopathic monster. He seems to have had a sense of entitlement, however, and if he didn’t achieve something, it wasn’t because of his failings, but because of a “conspiracy” against him.

He took over many more civilized and intelligent people in order to carry out his grudge, but it seems that throughout history, there have been people like him. And they attract followers with imaginary grudges. That’s why I don’t think we should scoff at the possibility that the ignorant, semi-nuts but very ambitious Occasional Cortex may be the next Dem presidential candidate ... even though she won’t be old enough...and may very well win.