The President's Analyst

Dr. Justin Frank, director of psychiatry at George Washington University, is coming out with a book, "Bush On The Couch: Inside the Mind of the President" (thanks to Stumpy for the tip), wherein Frank sums up his diagnosis of El Presidente thusly: "Bush is an untreated ex-alcoholic with paranoid and megalomaniac tendencies."

As discussed by Capitol Hill Blue, this diagnosis includes an interesting discussion of Bush's very noticeable avoidance of funerals. Dr. Frank said, "President Bush has not attended a single funeral -- other than that of President Reagan. In my book I explore some possible reasons for that, whether or not it is 'presidential.' I am less interested in judging his behavior on political grounds than I am in thinking about its meaning both to him and to the rest of us. He has spent a lifetime of avoiding grief, starting with the death of his sister when he was 7 years old. His parents didn't help him with what must have been confusing and frightening feelings. He also has a history of evading responsibility and perhaps his not attending [military] funerals has to do with not wanting to see the damage his policies have wrought."

This analysis of a paranoid and megalomaniacal chief executive dovetails with other material already published here last week.