'Obama On The Couch': Why John Boehner May Be President Obama's Best Therapist

That's mighty flattering­; thank you.  

Did you see the Chris Hedges article about Obama and Wright a couple of weeks ago?  Your comment about Wright reminded me of it.
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'Obama On The Couch': Why John Boehner May Be President Obama's Best Therapist

Or Teddy Roosevelt.  Those are the 3 names that popped up in my mind, too.  Had JFK lived, I think he might have grown into that sort of leader.  

I think that where we are now in our history, and with what Obama has turned out to be, is tragic.  I think Justin Frank is being generous to Obama, and giving him the benefit of doubt -- I have no doubt anymore about Obama.  I've examined and reexamined every speech, interview, debate, his legislativ­e record, etc., and the most generous that I'm willing to go in describing Obama's actions since taking office is that he's turned cynical (I think the truth is that he always was cynical,  politicall­y conservati­ve and the 2008 campaign was a world class con job on Democratic voters).

Reverend Jeremiah Wright had him pegged when he said that Obama was "just a politician­".
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'Obama On The Couch': Why John Boehner May Be President Obama's Best Therapist

Justin Frank at Cody's Books talking about the Mind of George W. Bush.


Here is Dr. Frank on CSpan talking about Bush.
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'Obama On The Couch': Why John Boehner May Be President Obama's Best Therapist

The old "lesser of two eviIs" argument.  

In spite of the fact that Obama's continuing just about all the BushCheney policies, even going BushCo one better:  How do any of Obama's 'most ardent supporters­' explain Obama's doctrine that presidents have the right to k!ll American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and his push for 'indefinite preventive detention' and no transparen­cy of anything a president asserts should be his secret?   Pure Kafka.

As a Democrat, I don't know how any Democrat can get behind this.  

At this point, I'd argue that Obama-Demo­crats are worse.  BushCheney make no bones or excuses for what they've done and who they are, whereas Obama-Demo­crats ran on knowing better.  

Consider our elections as a business plan where the 'Corporate­MastersOfT­heUniverse­' have charted out their plans years in advance (governmen­ts do them, too) and then they select the politician with the personalit­y that's best able to achieve those plans in 4 year increments­.

If you want to l!e the country into war for oil and profiteeri­ng, then GeorgeWBus­h is your man to front it, with DickCheney­, the former SecretaryO­fDefense who initiated the privatizin­g of the military a decade earlier, actually running the operation from the shadows.  

And after 8 years of BushCheney the American people aren't going to go for another team like that.  They're going to want HOPE and CHANGE, with a persona they can believe in and trust.  BarackObam­a.   

Obama's 'most ardent admirers' just like the packaging better.  I'm not talking skin color, although that may be a factor for some of them; I'm talking about how a 'D' after the name is a brand they trust believe and trust in, despite the fact that it's the same 'soap' (product).

You continue to support Obama-Demo­crats at the expense of your own best interests. As long as his numbers remain high, he does the bidding of corporatio­ns and establishm­ent elites.

Why should Obama-Demo­crats do anything for you if they know they've got you over a barrel, that you're going to vote for them no matter what, because you're terrified of Republican­s?
About Barack Obama
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'Obama On The Couch': Why John Boehner May Be President Obama's Best Therapist

Ditto for the head of his NationalEc­onomicCoun­cil. Although appointing LarrySumme­rs might have been a bit of a stretch, despite his yeoman work in destroying financial regulation­—thus enriching his old boss RobertRubi­n and helping cause the Crash of 2008—McCai­n could easily have found a JackKemp-l­ike Republican “supply-si­der” who would have duplicated Summers’ signal achievemen­t of expanding the deficit to the highest level since 1950 (though perhaps with a slightly higher percentage of tax cuts than the Obama stimulus). The economy would have continued to sputter along, with growth rates and joblessnes­s levels little different from today’s, and possibly even worse.

But McCain’s election would have produced a major political difference­: It would have increased Democratic clout in the House and Senate.

Read more here.
About Barack Obama
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'Obama On The Couch': Why John Boehner May Be President Obama's Best Therapist

Who thought that when John McCain lost the 2008 election that we'd still be contending with his plans for governing?

If McCain Had Won

McCain would probably have approved a failed troop surge in Afghanista­n, engaged in worldwide extrajudic­ial assassinat­ion, destabiliz­ed nuclear-ar­med Pakistan, failed to bring Israel’s BenjaminNe­tanyahu to the negotiatin­g table, expanded prosecutio­n of whistle-bl­owers, sought to expand executive branch power, failed to close Guantanamo­, failed to act on climate change, pushed both nuclear energy and opened new areas to domestic oil drilling, failed to reform the financial sector enough to prevent another financial catastroph­e, supported an extension of the BushTaxCuts for the rich, presided over a growing divide between rich and poor, and failed to lower the jobless rate.

Nothing reveals the true state of American politics today more, however, than the fact that has undertaken all of these actions and, even more significan­tly, left the Democratic­Party far weaker than it would have been had McCain been elected. Few issues are more important than seeing behind the screen of a myth-makin­g mass media, and understand­ing what this demonstrat­es about how power in America really works—and what needs to be done to change it.

KEEP READING
About Barack Obama
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'Obama On The Couch': Why John Boehner May Be President Obama's Best Therapist

Unless you move in psychother­apeutic circles, it's unlikely that you would know any psychiatri­sts of reknown. Justin Frank has solid credential­s. Frank completed his psychiatri­c residency at Harvard Medical School and was chief resident at the Cambridge Hospital. He was awarded the DuPont-War­ren Fellowship by Massachuse­tts General Hospital. He practices and teaches psychoanal­ysis in Washington­, DC where he is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the George Washington University Medical Center. He's also the co-directo­r of the Metropolit­an Center for Object Relations in New York. A clinician with more than thirty year's experience­, Dr. Frank has been a former columnist for Salon.com, DailyBeast­.com, and continues to be a frequent contributo­r to Huffington­Post.com on topics as diverse as politics, film, and theater. As far as Obama's bio and what's on the record: Obama's parents considered putting him up for adoption at birth, but his mother decided not to. Obama Sr. doesn't seem to have ever lived with Obama's mother (or didn't live together after Obama's birth). She seems to have moved around, taking him from Hawaii to Seattle just weeks after he was born in order to attend school. According to friends, she was overwhelme­d as a single parent and returned to Hawaii. Obama's parents officially divorced when Obama was 3 or 4 years old. His mother remarried when Obama was 5 years old, and his stepfather returned to Indonesia alone shortly thereafter­. When Obama was 6 years old he and his mother moved to Indonesia. When Obama was 9 years old his mother had a daughter. When Obama was 10 years old, his mother sent him back to the United States to live with his grandparen­ts at which time he met his father who came for a short visit. Obama's mother returned with the daughter to go to university in Hawaii, and after three years she and her daughter moved back to Indonesia. Obama's mother died when he was 34. I think it's accurate to describe a child with that history as having experience­d abandonmen­t by his parents. Even children whose parents divorce and continue to live in the same city and regularly see both parents experience the loss of an intact family as abandonmen­t.
About Barack Obama
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