March 16, 2007
Crazy on you
In Diagnosis:Cheney ( or here), Charles Krauthammer dissects an essay from the New Republic by Michelle Cottle arguing that VP Cheney is crazy.
In a nutshell he concludes
If there's a diagnosis to be made here, it is this: yet another case of the one other syndrome I have been credited with identifying, a condition that addles the brain of otherwise normal journalists and can strike without warning -- Bush Derangement Syndrome, Cheney Variant.
via memeorandum
Usually, the typical approach to Republican politicians that liberals don't like is to say that they're stupid. But when they're faced with someone is clearly not stupid, I guess the next card to play is mental disorder.
But it's not just the politician, it's the policy too. Krauthammer observes that one of the sources for Cottle's diagnosis was
Longtime associate Brent Scowcroft quoted as saying, "Dick Cheney I don't know anymore."
Krauthammer continues:
Well. After Sept. 11, 2001, Cheney adopted a view about fighting jihadism, America's new existential enemy, that differed radically from the "realist" foreign policy approach that he had shared a decade earlier with Scowcroft.
And I'm going to assume that Cheney has a lot more information about the state of the Jihad than does Scowcroft.
Early on Krauthammer observed that the article is "an exercised in compassion." That's because the policies followed by the Bush administration are wrong. So Cottle must either assume that Cheney is evil or that he's crazy. Crazy is the nicer way to classify the politician she opposes. It's all very neat. And more than a little bit crazy.
Blogdigger tags: Dick Cheney, Michelle Cottle, Charles Krauthammer.
