Regarding Dick Cheney's diagnosis, we are dealing with a complex case because, unlike President Bush, Cheney has a normal IQ. He is actually able to read and he is extremely controlling-- he keeps track of every thing. Unlike bush, he is introverted; he does not enjoy social gatherings. He is very protective of himself; he does not put himself in situations in which he might be strongly confronted. Therefore the information about the real Dick Cheney is hard to come by.
I am going to do my diagnostic work-up of Cheney based upon an article that was printed on the net last march.
"Dick Cheney's Suite Demands Veep's "rider" requires Sprite, 68 degrees, TVs tuned to Fox News MARCH 23--
After posting the performance contracts of artists like Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, and U2, The Smoking Gun has finally obtained the backstage demands of a real rock star. That's right, below you'll find a copy of Vice President Dick Cheney's standard "tour" rider. The document is provided to hotels where Cheney will be bunking and lists how the Republican pol's "Downtime Suite" needs to be outfitted. While the vice president's requests are pretty modest (no extract-the-brown-M&M demands here), Cheney does like his suite at a comfy 68 degrees. And, of course, all the televisions need to be preset to the Fox News Channel (what, you thought he was a Lifetime devotee?). Decaf coffee should be ready upon his arrival along with four cans of caffeine-free Diet Sprite. And when Cheney is traveling with his wife Lynne, the second family's suite needs an additional two bottles of sparkling water. Mrs. Cheney's H2O should be either Calistoga or, curiously, Perrier, a favored beverage of French terrorism appeasers. The document, prepared by the vice president's advance team, was obtained by TSG after it was provided to a hotel employee prior to a Cheney visit. When we asked Cheney spokesperson Jenny Mayfield about the document's reference to gifts that hotels might leave in the suite for the vice president, she told us she was unable to address that question since she had not seen the "downtime requirements" rider (she asked for a copy, which we declined to provide in advance of its publication here). At our source's request, we've blacked out the handwritten name and Washington, D.C. phone number of a Cheney staffer. As for the notations regarding extra lamps, specific newspapers, and a carafe, it is unclear whether they were added by an advance team staffer or a hotel official."
I heard this story the next day on the radio and T.V. and there was no refutation of the story by Cheney's office. This clearly shows that the vice president is suffering from Obsessive compulsive disorder. All human beings have some routines but compulsions are totally different behaviors, they are difficult to change and small modifications in them cause outrage. Most OCD sufferers are high achievers, however once they get to this point their condition gets mixed with paranoia. They are usually moralistic and religious but stingy and frugal.
As patients, they are a total pain in the neck. Their fear of medication prevents them from taking antidepressants which is the best category of medicine in treating them. They are usually perfectionist, self critical and critical of others. Probably the most important point is that their spouses are usually outgoing, extroverted and submissive. For a control freak like Cheney there is nothing nicer than a clueless partner like George Bush.
Recently I posted an article on the neuropsychology of George Bush. There were a lot of responses to the article, mostly nice and some quite harsh. Some of my critiques, had focused on the unintentional grammatical errors in the article .I would like to thank you for your encouragements and kind words. I should also thank all those who criticized the grammatical errors. I promise to be more careful next time, and make sure that there is a better editing. However, I hope every one is kind enough to keep in mind that English is my fourth language, and although I have lived in the U.S for thirty one years, I do make grammatical errors and this handicap is going to be with me as long as I am alive .Please remember that if you learn a second language in adult life you never lose accent and never incorporate fully the new language. My republican friends should remember that my Ph.D. is in psychology not English and your problem is George Bush not me. My grammatical errors are minor irritants .George Bush's errors cause people to die.
One last point that I should make is that I stand behind my analysis and conceptualization of Bush's neuropsychological problems, and will be happy to debate that topic any time any where.
www.neuropsychcenter.net
My name is Dr Abbas Sadeghian. I Am a Clinical Neuropsychologist. I work mostly with people who have suffered from stroke or other neurological conditions. My minor in college was History. I am an Assistant Professor of Psychology in Northeastern Ohio University College of Medicine.
great piece. i found it fascinating. i had read that previous article about Cheney's weird habits and just thought him weird and a control freak but didn't put it together with OCD. now that i think about it, it makes perfect sense.
if i ever learn a fourth language, i hope to be as fluent in it as you are in English.
thanks.
Joan B, Voting Integrity Ed., OpEdNews
by
Joan Brunwasser (172 articles, 3597 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 675 comments)
on Tuesday, January 16, 2007 at 7:40:40 AM
Naa, bott Bush and Cheney suffer from one syndrom:)
this syndrom is called an SOB syndrom and they are both just bastards. Who cares what bastards, really? Bush is a moron and Cheney is a vampire. Nice pair. I would even call that a 'relationship of the third kind', like those pairs of serial killers, the 'master- slave' types. Leopold and Loeb maybe?
by
Mark Sashine (55 articles, 19 quicklinks, 257 diaries, 3711 comments)
on Tuesday, January 16, 2007 at 7:55:34 AM
Thanks for your insights into Bush, Cheney and OCD.
It seems OCD is even more common than I imagined.
As a nurse-with borderline OCD tendancies I have found the healthiest outlet is to think of and do for others.
Drugs mask symptoms, but never treat the cause.
I posted some of the following offering on your Bush essay, but it was ignored in the flurry of criticism over your English skills.
I offer it again and ask you to please comment on the neuropsychology of one with OCD tendancies who has found the way of 'treatment' to be in service and through social justice activism.
The following is an excerpt from
KEEP HOPE ALIVE
Chapter 10: THAT DAY
Jack had been restless for three days. Julianne was in New York City at her sisters and wasn't due back for three more. His knees began throbbing more the moment she drove out of sight the morning of September 8, 2001.
After returning home on Monday night from The BLAC: Brother Lawrence Addictions Center, Jack mindlessly ate two Lean Cuisines, then spent the rest of the evening trying to read. He fell asleep just before dawn and dreamt he was on the blacktop running track at the middle school where Julianne taught 7th grade English; and where they both rollerbladed in the early mornings before the kids came to campus.
Jack spent a ten hour day at The BLAC, as its Founder and Administrator, and the mornings on the track were when the couple had their best conversations. He inhaled the aroma of tar as he wondered what was keeping Julianne from him. He bladed for what seemed like hours when a silver spandex clad apparition with a golden helmet flew by, sharply turned and with a backward stroke, called out, "Hi Jack, don't look down, don't look back, look out straight Jack, look out straight!"
"Yeah, I can, I can do that." Jack bellowed back to the apparition that had already vaporized into the distance. Then Jack rolled onto an exquisite grace; knees freed from bone on bone grinding and not an ache within his fifty-three year old body that had been abused by two motor vehicle accidents and hours of over use syndrome. Jack glided upon the blacktop effortlessly for what seemed like hours, when suddenly, a roar of thunder assaulted his senses and his eyes were magnetized upward, to view two fireballs thrown down from on high, miles from where he stood. He saw them hit the ground, one traveled east, the other west, and then they circled back around, burning a path straight towards him. Just before they collide, Jack woke up not believing he had only been dreaming.
Not until after he had downed a pot of coffee did the phone ring. "Jack? Are you watching TV?" Maureen, the Day Supervisor at The BLAC asked as she fingered the framed mission statement that sat upon every desk and on the north wall of every room that Jack wrote in 1984;
"Peace, peace, peace. God's peace be upon you. But living today in a time of war, crying out peace, peace, peace, where there is no peace. Fearing age and death, pain and darkness, destitution and loneliness, people need to get back to the simplicity of Brother Lawrence." [Dorothy Day]
Brother L was a monk in the 17th Century who lived in a monastery and was consigned to the kitchen. He spent his life baking bread and chopping onions, scrubbing pots and floors. He ran all the errands, did all the shopping and always brought back the finest of wine. He loved his brothers deeply but they merely tolerated his many eccentricities or he was totally ignored...Truly, I tell to you, if ever a saint was born to bring hope to the addicted and those afflicted with obsessive compulsive tendencies: he is the one. For Brother L learned that by continually re-remembering the Lord, no matter what the activity, or where one might be, the Lord was ever present and a holy habit was born, just re-remembering that."
end of excerpt-
So, we all suffer from something-we all battle our own demons and addictions, but isn't taking the higher ground of altruism and service the best medicine for ourselves and this troubled world?
I really like your idea of channelling OCD energy into doing good. The same could also apply to addictive behavior.
Just imagine if Bush and Cheney experienced epiphanies that turned them away from the dark side, and towards this idea of doing good. Imagine if Bush and Cheney, or even one of them, decided to do good, tell the truth, stand up to evil, in the forms of greed, hunger for power, corruption.
Bush could turn his legacy around.
by
Rob Kall (892 articles, 4058 quicklinks, 350 diaries, 1925 comments)
on Tuesday, January 16, 2007 at 8:47:49 AM
I know you are busy with the conference, and probably not getting enough sleep, but YOU HAVE LOST YOUR MIND.
Pigs will fly and chocolate will rain from the sky before Bush OR Cheney turns around and does good.
And even if they did, I'm not sure this Republican Administration's total ignoring of major, world-threatening environmental threats for 6 years could ever be "turned around."
People do change, but STUPID and EVIL is for life.
CharlieL
Portland, OR
by
Charlie L (2 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 737 comments)
on Tuesday, January 16, 2007 at 10:43:19 AM
Rob, gets giddy like that every time he reads up on Pelosi.
He thinks butterflies can sing and birds can talk.
Bush and Cheney, does seem a little bit of the jumping the gun even for Rob. He must of stubbed his typing finger causing him to hit the wrong keys.
by
Fred F (1 articles, 1 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 361 comments)
on Tuesday, January 16, 2007 at 2:50:54 PM
Hi Eileen
Thank you for your kind words.I am sorry I did not get back to you earlier.I need a few days to go through all of your material to give you an intelligent respose.I will get back to you by the week end.
ABBAS
by
Abbas Sadeghian, Ph.D. (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 18 comments)
on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 12:31:48 AM
"Imagination is evidence of The Divine"-William Blake
The failure of Intelligence to NOT imagine the Towers would be hit from above after they were hit from below;
was a failure of imagination.
"The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership....a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures." - William Fulbright
"Looking for a Leader with The Great Spirit on his/her side."-Neal Young
I'm concerned with the statement "Their fear of medication prevents them from taking antidepressants which is the best category of medicine in treating them."
Drugs may modify behavior but sometimes in an adverse way.
The US Army Institute of Enviornmental Medicine in Natick, MA experiments giving drug to soldiers to lessen battlefield anxiety.
But perhaps this may have a adverse effect of making a soldier less vigilant? And thus more likely to be a casulty?
Here are some slides about what the Army is doing with drug experiment from of my former [1971] PhD students in experimental psychology.
I really do not know anything about Dick Cheney, but I do know something about OCD. And what I wanted to add is, that OCD is a very painful disorder, and patients who suffer from it actually do suffer. Of course, the same can be said for such states as Depression, except with OCD, the weirdness of the compulsive actions covers up the pain, and it is less visible, and often not comprehended by the casual observer, and who thinks this guy/woman is primarily bizarre, comical, and irritating.
by
Katrin R. (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 514 comments)
on Tuesday, January 16, 2007 at 7:23:42 PM
I was stunned to find out that Cheney's wife used to be on Crossfire. I am still not over her walking over to Kerry on the stage and shouting, "This man is a bad man! This man is a bad man!" The lady is crazy!
There are some positive things that you can say about the Cheneys. They've accepted their lesbian daughter and soon to be grandchild. Better than what Allan Keyes did. I am ashamed of Allan Keyes. He stubbornly hangs on to his Bible but has never read the Parable of The Prodigal Son. I even emailed his daughter in support, over how her bimbo father has treated her.
So in this theater I would rank the three from worst to best, Bush (What a lame brain to think he could go into Iraq and win their hearts. He will go down as our worst president in the history of the US and will go down as the worst modern leader in all the world. Sadly, his daughters had a 50% of becoming alcoholics and from reports, they, sadly, are.), Keyes (Absolutely no excuse for a father to disown and excumminicate a daughter for any reason! I'd spit in his face. Daughter's are wonderful and are given to fathers to love.) Cheney (If I were married to his wife, I would be a stark raving lunatic. No wonder he has all the heart problems.) He fits in well with my father's side of the family because, uneducated as all were, excluding my father, they all thought they were right, stubbornly, and all had a road-rage personality.)
I decided to raise my children differently, and to say there was dissidence, is an understatement. But, ... as surely as they hated it, our kids turned out just fine, without all the confrontation and physical punishment. And my kids have chosen to raise their kids like we have. None of this, "I'm agonna' give you a whoppen!"
by
Dale Hill (58 articles, 0 quicklinks, 102 diaries, 347 comments)
on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 1:21:48 AM
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