Dr. Keith Ablow -- the discredited psychiatrist who is a leading member of Fox News' “Medical A-Team” -- cited President Obama's childhood to claim that his “victim mentality” accounts for his tough stance against Republicans over the government shutdown and will lead to “dissolving the will of countless Americans” to provide for themselves.  

In an October 10 FoxNews.com column, Ablow claimed that Obama's actions as president can be understood if seen through the prism of his “victim mentality.”  He criticized Obama's rhetoric calling the GOP's actions forcing a government shutdown as taking “hostages,” claiming that this shows Obama believes “America victimized him and countless millions of others” and considers anyone who opposes him as “not just his adversary, but abusive, predatory and even threatening.”:

It is exceedingly difficult to come to terms with a person who sees you as his oppressor, his kidnapper, and someone terrorizing him who might well destroy him. You aren't likely to consider whether your assailant and jailer and would-be killer has a few good ideas, after all. 

A victim mentality would explain why the president immediately allies with anyone else he thinks might be a victim, too.  Seeing Barack Obama as someone who has a victim mentality would explain a lot. That mentality relies on believing one has been harmed, that one was not responsible for the injuries that occurred, that one could not have prevented what happened and that the person's suffering makes that person morally right and deserving of sympathy.

Ablow then described all the ways Obama has purportedly not gotten over being victimized as a child, asserting that “the president's victim mentality could have already gone global”:

As a young boy, Obama was, indeed, helpless. 

He was helpless to stop his father from abandoning him. 

He was helpless to stop his mother from leaving him with his grandparents. 

He was helpless to stop his white grandmother and caretaker from communicating to him her fears of black people. 

I'm not sure the president ever got over it.

The president's victim mentality could contribute to dissolving the will of countless Americans who might otherwise see themselves as capable of summoning internal resolve and creativity to surge out of poverty.

Fox News continues to provide a forum for Ablow to personally attack the president and to use his status as a psychiatrist to issue armchair diagnoses of Obama and those who voted for him. Ablow has previously invoked Obama's childhood to claim that as a result he favors "disempowering the individual" and criticizing the Supreme Court.