Kerry the narcissist plans ahead

The New Neo Posted on by

I noticed on Hugh Hewitt’s blog today some quotes from a recent Kerry interview, quotes that made my blood run cold. Here’s the exchange:

Q. “If you are elected, given Paul Bremer’s remarks, and deteriorating conditions as you have judged them, would you be prepared to commit more troops?”

A. “I will do what the generals believe we need to do without having any chilling effect, as the president put in place by firing General Shinseki, and I’ll have to wait until January 20th. I don’t know what I am going to find on January 20th, the way the president is going. If the president just does more of the same every day, and it continues to deteriorate, I may be handed Lebanon, figuratively speaking. Now, I just don’t know. I can’t tell you. What I’ll tell you is, I have a plan. I have laid out my plan to America, and I know that my plan has a better chance of working. And in the next days I am going to say more about exactly how we are going to do what has been available to this Administration that it has chosen not to do. But I will make certain that our troops are protected. I will hunt down and kill the terrorists, and I will make sure that we are successful, and I know exactly what I am going to do and how to do it.”

In a moment, I’m going to “psycho-fisk” Kerry’s statement, sentence by sentence.

I’m hardly the first to point out that Kerry appears to have narcissistic personality disorder. That seems to be the source of his strange quality of speech, since every word is uttered not because of personal conviction, but to produce a particular effect. Now, all politicians do this, certainly, but Kerry does it to an extent I have never seen before in any politician. It seems as though every single one of his utterances follows the rule: is it good for Kerry? And, furthermore: is it bad for Bush? It doesn’t matter whom he insults (generals, allies, Allawi) and truth or falsehood is not an issue (his statement about General Shinseki is false, and it’s been pointed out often enough that Kerry must know that fact and not care) as long as he is puffing himself up in the process.

Taken sentence by sentence, his answer is quite a masterpiece of strategic expression. The question was so simple: “Would you commit more troops?” But the answer is not simple at all, as Kerry’s answers never are.

SENTENCE 1: “I will do what the generals believe we need to do without having any chilling effect, as the president put in place by firing General Shinseki, and I’ll have to wait until January 20th.”

With great parsimony, Kerry combines in this one sentence: a) passing the buck (“I’ll do whatever they tell me”) about any decision he might actually make some day; b) the gratutitous insertion of the lie about Shinseki’s firing, in order to slam Bush; c) the idea that he would love to act now because he’s just chomping at the bit to rectify the mess, but unfortunately he’ll have to wait till his inauguration. Since it goes without saying that he can’t act till his inauguration, why does he say it? To set up the following thought, which can be summarized as, “Whatever happens, don’t blame me; blame him!” (see sentences 2 and 3)

SENTENCES 2 and 3: “I don’t know what I am going to find on January 20th, the way the president is going. If the president just does more of the same every day, and it continues to deteriorate, I may be handed Lebanon, figuratively speaking.”

The phrase “the president” is repeated for emphasis, to implant in the listener’s mind the idea that it’s all Bush’s, fault, and that Kerry can’t be blamed for whatever deterioration might happen between now and January 20, since that imbecile Bush is in office till then. So Kerry is effectively absolving himself of all responsibility in the future. He is creating the excuse he will use if he is elected and things don’t go well in Iraq when he, Kerry, is in office. It will all be Bush’s fault. Of course, if Kerry is elected and things happen to go well, rest assured that Kerry will take full credit, saying he has done it despite the mess Bush handed him. For a narcissist, all possible failures are blamed on another, all possible accomplishments are credited to the self.

SENTENCES 4 and 5: “Now, I just don’t know. I can’t tell you.”

These short sentences are a kind of filler. Like another person might say “hmm” or “uhhh,” Kerry says, “I don’t know, I can’t say.” It’s reflexive, and represents his profound inability to commit to a position or even make a statement.

SENTENCES 6 and 7: “What I’ll tell you is, I have a plan. I have laid out my plan to America, and I know that my plan has a better chance of working.”

Here Kerry rouses himself to snap out of the reflexive waffling of sentences 4 and 5 with his mantra, “plan.” The word “plan” has become the substitute for an actual plan. Saying the word will stand for the thing itself, and give the appearance of decisiveness and action. Kerry now defines himself as the man with the plan. That’s all ye need to know. But he’s also the man with the plan who’s been accused of never being specific about that plan, so now he is careful to correct that misapprehension: he’s the man with the plan that he has “laid out to America” so see, you can’t accuse him of not being specific! And of course he knows, he just magically knows, that his plan has “a better chance of working.” He doesn’t have to say why it has a better chance, he just knows it does and we should trust him because he is who he is. And notice he doesn’t say it has a “good” chance of working; he says it has a “better” chance of working. Inherent in the word Kerry uses here is a comparison, the idea that Bush’s plan is worse. Kerry never misses an opportunity to criticize someone else while puffing himself up.

SENTENCE 8: “And in the next days I am going to say more about exactly how we are going to do what has been available to this Administration that it has chosen not to do.”

Another packed sentence. Kerry won’t say more about this plan now, because he hasn’t a clue what he means. So he defers the description of the plan to some unspecified later time when he knows he’ll never have to answer the question (“in the next days”). But at that hazy future time he will say exactly what he is going to do, because once again he is making sure he is perceived as decisive and specific by using a word like “exactly.” And that very specific and exact thing that he can’t say now but will of course say later is not just something that he himself has come up with, it’s something that “has been available to this administration”–again, Kerry must define himself only in comparison to Bush’s perceived failings. And this unspecified inexact but exact available thing that Bush has failed to do, and that in a few days will become exact, is not a simple failure. It’s a failure of choice; Bush could have done this exact and successful thing, but has “chosen not to do” it. Which makes Bush exceptionally bad, since he could have done a successful thing but chose not to.

SENTENCES 9 and 10: “But I will make certain that our troops are protected. I will hunt down and kill the terrorists, and I will make sure that we are successful, and I know exactly what I am going to do and how to do it.”

Here we have only two sentences, but the word “I” is used five times. Kerry is painting a picture of himself as a man of action. And this man of action is an individual who will do those things by himself, magically unassisted. Notice how he doesn’t say, “I will appoint a better Secretary of Defense” or “better generals” or “reform the intelligence community” or “rally the troops” to do any of those things. No, he, personally, Kerry himself by himself, will protect those troops and kill those terrorists. I picture him as Rambo, chasing down Osama and shooting him with his trusty deer rifle. (Those who have read Unfit for Command will immediately recognize this aspect of Kerry’s personality). Kerry will be successful and he knows how to do it: exactly how to do it. There’s that word “exactly” again, and it’s no accident that it’s there. It’s there for the same reason it was there before—to make it seem as though there is something firm and specific in his mind, even though he isn’t telling us and will never tell us. In fact, the entire passage is incoherent.

Well, it’s been fun. But exhausting.

When is a debate not a debate?

The New Neo Posted on by

When it’s a Presidential debate.

I’ve always hated these things, from the Kennedy/Nixon days. They make me nervous and they perplex me. Debating seems to be a skill that has nothing–absolutely nothing–to do with being an effective president. And of course these debates have nothing in common with actual debates, which are rhetorical contests with certain rules and regulations and have nothing whatsoever to do with action and decisionmaking, and everything to do with argument.

One of the things I’m trying to do in this blog is to comment on things in light of my training as a therapist combined with my perspective as a newly-minted newsjunkie neocon. It’s an unusual combination, I think, and it’s what I have to offer that might be somewhat unique or distinctive. So, in this light, my observations on the debates are as follows:

Kerry is one slick operator, very experienced in this venue and relatively cool, calm, and collected. But his narcissism (and I mean that in the clinical sense) was on full display last night. The word “I” is not only his favorite word, but his voice caresses it and draws it out in a way that is very telling. He seems to believe that he only has to say that he will do something, and–by virtue of being the very remarkable “I” that he is–he will convince us that it will be done. It is a remarkable and very consistent trait, not a good thing in a leader, and clearly antithetical to any idea of coalition-building.

As for Kerry’s policy statesments, others have discussed them better than I (for example, see this and this ). But I must say that Kerry said a few things that literally made my jaw drop: his emphasis on “summits” and the UN (I thought I was back in the early 60s); the giving of nuclear fuel to Iran as some sort of test; and the nixing of the bunker busters, one of the few weapons that have the potential to allow us to destroy nuclear weapons and material stored in underground bunkers by the likes of Iran or North Korea.

On the emotional side again, Bush seemed stressed and tired, careworn. That could play either way, depending on whether people feel (as I do) that his tiredness comes from working so hard for three years to make tough decisions, and having to campaign on top of it. Some people might feel somewhat protective of him–he’s like a hardworking father coming home tired from a long day at work, wanting to just sit down and read the newspaper, but having to be pestered by this phoney-baloney droner, Kerry. Of course the Bush-haters will see it quite differently, but I’m talking more about others.

I wonder how anyone can credit a person like Kerry who only says, “He, Bush, did it wrong; but I, Kerry, would do it right,” without providing a crumb of evidence as to why that would be so. Everyone hates Monday-morning quarterbacks, don’t they? Everyone knows hindsight is 20/20, right?

Bush seemed to be angry, though–not visibly, but underneath, and it made him rush his sentences more than usual, especially in the first half of the debate, and it made him seem confused and forced. And while it seems to me that Bush will be evaluated on his job performance by most people, I think this anger is a wild card in people’s reactions. Those who are annoyed by Kerry will probably wonder that Bush wasn’t even angrier, and will give Bush points for forbearance. But those who find Kerry okay will wonder what got Bush’s goat. As for me, I think I know.

Farnaz Fassihi’s e-mail

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s appeared suddenly on a number of blogs: the well-known Andrew Sullivan’s and the obscure (although not as obscure as me!) Wiserblog.

And what is it, you ask? It’s a private e-mail attributed to WSJ journalist Farnaz Fassihi and being circulated around the web through the magic of e-mail forwarding. As far as I know (it has not yet) been authenticated as actually being from her. But let’s assume that the attribution is correct, and that it is indeed from Fassihi.

The first point this incident makes is a cautionary one: be careful what you write in your private e-mails, and to whom you write it, because once you click on “send,” you’ve lost all power over it, and it can become a public document.

Fassahi’s e-mail describes a climate of chaos and fear in Baghdad and beyond. It seems a good bet that the motivation of many doing the forwarding is to stir up fear that the situation in Iraq is even worse than the MSM is already reporting it to be. But, is it?

Remember that this is a private e-mail that was never intended for publication. As such, it is more of a personal and psychological document than reportage. The beginning of the e-mail makes it pretty clear that Fassihi is terrified, and perhaps even suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder from a recent nearby bombing. Fassihi is not a seasoned, hardened reporter; she is a young and relatively inexperienced woman (more about that later). She’s not speaking as a reporter here, and she’s not writing an article; she’s speaking privately as a very young woman who is scared out of her wits, and frustrated that she’s not been able to explore Iraq freely, as she had originally dreamed of doing.

It’s clear that she isn’t writing about the situation of the average Iraqi person, because she is mostly unable to talk to Iraqis or to go about the city: “Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under virtual house arrest… I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason to and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people’s homes and never walk in the streets. I can’t go grocery shopping any more, can’t eat in restaurants, can’t strike a conversation with strangers, can’t look for stories…There has been one too many close calls, including a car bomb so near our house that it blew out all the windows.”

A recent article quotes Fassihi, making it clear that the recent kidnapping of the two French journalists has greatly increased her fear for her own personal safety :

“It made us feel more vulnerable… that it could happen to anybody,’ said Farnaz Fassihi, a Wall Street Journal correspondent. Previously journalists had thought they were safe from kidnappings if they carried a non-coalition passport, she said. No longer.”

So, who is Fassihi? She is a 31-year-old woman, a Muslim-American with Iranian-born parents. Here’s some biographical information:

About Farnaz Fassihi
Age: 31
Title: Middle East correspondent, Wall Street Journal
Education: M.S. in journalism ”“ Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. B.A. in English literature ”“ Tehran University in Iran
Previous work experience:
Assistant and translator for Western reporters visiting Iran
New York Times: Stringer
Providence Journal: Reporter
Newark Star-Ledger: Reporter, worked on the team that covered the Sept. 11 attacks and later served overseas as a correspondent

So, it appears that all of Fassihi’s foreign correspondence has occurred post-9/11. She is quite new to the game. My guess is that she may have been pressed into foreign-correspondent service post-9/11 because of her language and ethnic background. Until her recent Iraqi stint, her foreign correspondence seems to have involved mainly what used to be called “human interest” stories, mostly in Iran and Afghanistan: Valentine’s Day in Tehran, how Iranian women deal with fashion, the plight of Afghan refugees.

You can see that Fassihi’s academic background is in English literature and journalism–a BA from Tehran University and an MS from Columbia. Does she have any experience, training, or special knowledge in Mideast or Arab affairs other than her ethnic background and linguistic powers? Does she have any particular knowledge of war, military strategy, or the history of postwar reconstructions and occupations? If she did, I would imagine she might have been able to bring some context to the present situation in Iraq, and perhaps been better prepared psychologically for what she would be facing there.

It’s another guess on my part–I don’t really know–but isn’t it the case that, years ago, someone based in a position such as Ms. Fassihi’s would be a senior correspondent with years of experience and knowledge to back up his/her reporting? My strong suspicion is that Ms. Fassihi is in over her head and is terrified by the danger facing journalists in Baghdad, particularly the kidnappings. I can hardly blame her–in fact, I don’t blame her at all. But I wonder what relatively neophyte journalists such as Ms. Fassihi are doing in Iraq, and what their superiors are thinking of, sending them there without the situation being more stable.

When Saddam was in power, journalists had to toe the party line, and the news we got from Iraq couldn’t be trusted. Now, journalists are virtual prisoners, and their articles (and certainly their private e-mails!) are just as likely to reflect their fears for their own safety as to reflect reality for the Iraqi people as a whole. Hard to draw any conclusions from this, except that the truth of what’s really happening in Iraq is elusive, and that Fassihi’s e-mail is only one tiny part of the picture.

Draftscam

The New Neo Posted on by

I’d heard about the new e-mail campaign to scare students and mothers of teenagers into thinking Bush is going to reinstate the draft. And last night, just like clockwork, one of my friends forwarded it to me. So it seems this thing has gone pretty far if my usually level-headed and not-particularly-gullible friend fell for it.

The most salient part of the draftscam e-mail goes like this:

I am deeply concerned by the fact that there is legislation currently being discussed by the Armed Forces committee that would reinstate the draft as early as next summer for both men and women ages 18-26 with no student deferment. Equally disturbing is the fact that there has been no public discussion of this. Who is silencing the media?

Isn’t it clever? Note the passive voice: “there is legislation currently being discussed.” Omitted is the fact–easily learned by anyone who follows the news or knows how to use Google–that the legislation is a liberal Democratic project.

Truth is, the bill to reinstate the draft was proposed and introduced in 2003 by two of the most extreme liberal Democrats in the House, Charles Rangel and Fritz Hollings, who wanted to get it on the table in order to later make the charge that it was under consideration (see this and see also this). Jim McDermott, another Democrat who is one of the most liberal members of Congress, was another sponsor of the draft bill (see this).

This is actually one of the most cynical and cold-bloodedly Machiavellian schemes in my memory, and my memory goes back quite a ways. Let’s see: propose a bill that you have no interest in actually passing, for the express purpose of using it later to smear the opposition by insinuating that it is their bill. Launch an e-mail campaign at just the right moment to get the word out and scare the living daylights out of anyone in college, or anyone with a son approaching college age.

And they thought Nixon was a dirty trickster!!

And then there’s that vaguely conspiratorial “who is silencing the media?” Last I checked, no one–the media has been quite verbose lately, thank you very much. If the media has ignored this subject recently, it’s because it’s a nonstarter and a nonissue and a transparently political ploy. And, as you can see by my links above, it was covered in the media when the bill was originally proposed by Rangel et. al.

The Internet is a double-edged sword in this election, a player as never before. Yes, bloggers like Little Green Footballs and Powerline were instrumental in scotching CBS’s plans to bring down a President through the airing of questionable documents. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Churchill’s old adage, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on” feels truer than ever, thanks to the instantaneous magic of e-mail.

As a lifelong liberal Democrat turned neocon, I feel ashamed of my former naivete. After all, I used to actually believe liberals were above such dirty tricks. And so I feel the intense anger of a person whose lover has been unfaithful: long ago, I trusted these people, and they have betrayed me, over and over, in a time of grave danger. I’m not likely to forgive them.