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Right-wing media put Obama on the couch for inch-deep analysis

November 20, 2009 3:45 pm ET — 23 Comments

Right-wing media figures, including Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, and The Washington Times' Wesley Pruden, have in recent days attacked President Obama while discussing his mental state. While claiming, "I'm not asking you to psychoanalyze the president," Beck asked psychiatrist and Fox News contributor Keith Ablow, "Are we crazy for saying something is not right?"; Savage offered a psychological diagnosis of Obama, claiming that the president has "deep psychological problems" and "deep-seated inferiority feelings."

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Right-wing media figures discuss what's "wrong" with Obama, identify "deep psychological problems"

Beck and psychiatrist Ablow not psychoanalyzing the president -- just discussing what's "wrong" with him. On the November 11 edition of his Fox news program, Beck stated to Ablow: "I wrote to you, and I said, 'Do you see anything wrong here as a -- ' I'm not asking you to psychoanalyze the president. I'm saying, psychoanalyze the American people. Are we crazy for saying something is not right?" In his reply, Ablow stated: "We're not crazy for saying something's not right. It's a little crazy that more people aren't saying it more loudly." Ablow later stated: "[T]here is a big, cavernous gulf, apparently, between the president's ability to generate emotion and charisma and gripping words that move people when he's scripted. And then, when there's less time to prepare, there's some sort of lack of connectedness, a true lack of connectedness with at least what moves the majority of us." In discussing Obama's statements about the Fort Hood shooting, which Beck claimed were "disconnected," Ablow said: "[I]f he's not scripted to deliver the emotional cues, if he's not scripted to have lots of time and a teleprompter to do it, then he tends to stumble. And this was a huge stumble. This was a big, big window on the man's soul, I think." [Fox News' Glenn Beck, 11/11/09]

Savage's psychoanalysis: Obama has "deep psychological problems," "deep-seated inferiority feelings." While discussing Obama's bow to Japanese Emperor Akihito, Savage stated that "this man has deep psychological problems" and that "since we know he is only a man, and therefore since all men suffer from psychological problems, is it not logical to assume that he may have psychological problems? And if so, what are his psychological problems, and how do they affect this man's behavior and his overt contempt for America, its history, and its people and his love of everything third-world?" He later claimed that "you start to put a picture together of a guy who has such deep-seated inferiority feelings, it seems as though he's looking for his father all over the world." [Talk Radio Network's The Savage Nation, 11/17/09]

Pruden: "Obama's curious compulsion to travel the world to make endless apologies for America could stem from his spending the most formative years of his childhood in the Third World." In a November 17 column, Pruden, The Washington Times' editor emeritus, wrote that Obama's bow to Emperor Akihito was "a sign of a really deep sense of inferiority." In a November 20 column, Pruden wrote: "Barack Obama's curious compulsion to travel the world to make endless apologies for America could stem from his spending the most formative years of his childhood in the Third World."

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    • Author by bintx (November 20, 2009 3:49 pm ET)
      3 6
      The same thing was done to GWB.
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      • Author by wookie (November 20, 2009 4:58 pm ET)
        8  
        It was done much more to Al Gore. He was rather lamely compared to the Unabomber. Bush was mostly just considered lazy and dumb.
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      • Author by wzwriter (November 20, 2009 5:31 pm ET)
        7 1
        There's a difference. Bush was (and still is) mentally defective.
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        • Author by bintx (November 20, 2009 5:57 pm ET)
          5 1
          You have a point, but long distance psychoanalyzing is a bit silly.

          Bush's actions certainly were more indicative of a psychotic, but then I know more about him personally.
          Report Abuse
    • Author by only_myschly3567 (November 20, 2009 4:19 pm ET)
      12  
      Yeah I'm sorry but I don't trust a psychologist who on Glenn Beck and wants to examine some other psyche than that of Glenn Becks...
      Report Abuse
      • Author by snewkirk (November 20, 2009 5:19 pm ET)
        1  
        It's like walking into a McDonalds and psychoanalyzing the worker behind the cash register while ignoring the grown man wearing make-up, dressed in colorful overalls trying to make friends with all the kids in the Play-Palace, & who isn't a McDonalds employee.
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    • Author by sadeyes (November 20, 2009 4:46 pm ET)
      5  
      It was Dr. Ablow's idea to first call President Obama "racist". He said this on the Glenn Beck show the day before GB appeared on "Fox & Friends" spouting this theme. Beck merely repeated to F&F the points expressed, I believe the very words used, by Dr. Ablow. No "credit" was given to the good doctor for his fanciful opinions. I have always been quite surprised that Ablow is never mentioned when Beck's racist designation of our president is spoken of. After all, the whole thing was Ablow's brilliant notion.
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      • Author by mary59 (November 20, 2009 5:37 pm ET)
        6  
        Gee, Crazy doc Ablow, you're really a square;
        Glen Beck ain't one to judge, he needs an analyst's care!
        It's just his neurosis that oughta be curbed.
        He's psychologic'ly disturbed

        (*from Officer Krumpke, Westside Story)
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    • Author by ScienceBuff (November 20, 2009 5:03 pm ET)
      7  
      This would be hilarious if I didn't know that some weak-minded morons would buy it. They went for months and months claiming Obama was arrogant and had a messiah complex. When they realized that most people weren't going for it they went completely over to the other side and now are claiming he's insecure and has an inferiority complex. It's idiotic.
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      • Author by southerngal (November 20, 2009 5:19 pm ET)
        6  
        I agree with that. How can you be arrogant and an elitist one day, and suffer from an inferiority complex the next? If it wasn't obvious desperation and "let's throw the kitchen sink against the wall" stuff on the part of these goons like Beck, it would be flat out laughable.
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        • Author by Easy to refute wingnuts (November 20, 2009 6:07 pm ET)
          1  
          How can you be arrogant and an elitist one day, and suffer from an inferiority complex the next?
          Fox, the network that tells you, "We've always been at war with Eurasia."
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        • Author by Easy to refute wingnuts (November 20, 2009 6:06 pm ET)
             
          How can you be arrogant and an elitist one day, and suffer from an inferiority complex the next?
          Fox, the network that tells you, "We've always been at war with Eurasia."
          Report Abuse
      • Author by steeve (November 21, 2009 12:32 am ET)
           
        It's always funny when people complain of arrogance in someone who thinks he's the best person in the whole country to lead it.
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    • Author by stoogedude (November 20, 2009 6:21 pm ET)
         
      Keith Ablow is a tool. His TV show a few years ago was such a joke. I never bought a single thing this guy said, and now he's on Glenn Beck spouting this nonsense!
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    • Author by bewildered (November 20, 2009 10:18 pm ET)
      3  
      This is old. I remember Beck has already said similar things in regards to his gut feelings and psychoanalyzing the President.

      How exactly does one expect the President to react? He seemed very solemn and remorseful. This was hardly a time for an impassioned speech. It was a time for quiet reflection.
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    • Author by fabucat58 (November 21, 2009 10:28 am ET)
      2  
      Back during Watergate, someone in the press asked my psychologist dad to do an armchair analysis of Nixon's psyche. He declined and said that it was impossible to analyze someone's mental state from afar.

      Has Media Matters investigated this Ablow fellow? Is he REALLY a psychiatrist?

      For the record, I thought that "Bush On the Couch" kind of sucked too. A lot of what the author said about Bush's ADHD was spot on (I have ADHD too). The author, however, only focused on the negatives of ADHD. He failed to point out the positive aspects of ADHD.
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    • Author by fabucat58 (November 21, 2009 10:34 am ET)
      5 1
      ALSO -- Glen Beckkk shouldn't trash the sanity of other people. Beck suffers from bipolar disorder and is a recovering addict. He's the most mentally ill public figure since his fellow Washingtonian Kurt Cobain (may he rest in peace) left us. Cobain only was destructive to himself and those immediately around him. Beck's mental baggage pollutes our airwaves.

      I despise Beck, but my intuition is that he'd be a very good actor. There's something of the artist inside his mimicry, though he uses his gifts for negative ends.
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    • Author by Romario (November 21, 2009 2:04 pm ET)
      3  
      So the latest anti-Obama attack is that he has an inferiority complex? But these same people told us for months that Obama was arrogant, aloof, narcissistic and egotistical. Which is is for crying out loud?
      Sheesh.
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    • Author by drwh0 (November 21, 2009 2:45 pm ET)
         
      Savage's "analysis" is the logical fallacy of the undistributed middle:

      All Zs are Bs
      Y is a B
      Therefore, Y is a Z
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    • Author by pj_chicago (November 22, 2009 12:53 am ET)
         
      Will Beck ever give up on the psycho babble? Just listening to him in the first minute of this clip made me want to fling my laptop across the room.
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    • Author by OldHill (November 22, 2009 1:11 am ET)
         
      really i'm asking what's wrong with this president? is it the way a president should talk about national grief like fort hood?
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    • Author by Abdul (November 23, 2009 3:26 pm ET)
      1  
      Oh this is so hilarious Glen Beck is questioning Obama's sanity.

      To quote Kieth Olbermann to Beck "No You're Nuts."

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