Politicopathology – A Cure in Our Lifetime?

June 1992-

Suddenly, the horror struck me! I had been reading the exasperated quotations of some of the present and former US Congressmen, and various other courtiers, vampires and land remoras of the Washington environment published recently in the Post & Courier:

“I gave up a good job as s county executive with good pay to come up here in the middle of all this. I could be playing golf this afternoon, if I was home.”

“If you can’t have a private elevator and be able to cash checks, I really don’t see any reason to go through this rigmarole.”

“You might as well be in Des Moines.”

“It might as well be Albany.”

No more interest-free loans, unlimited restaurant tabs, free parking, post office services, medical care or tropical plants from the national botanical gardens, no more discount vacations and haircuts, no more endless boozing and womanizing. The party’s over, the good times are no longer rolling, and our capital offenders want to come home. They many not even wait for us to vote them out of office.

Sure, they’re a worthless bunch of overstuffed, over-staffed, smug, arrogant, conscience-less, bombastic, narcissistic, megalomaniacal blowhards, who last year had the temerity to vote themselves a 40 percent raise on the backs of their under-employed constituents. As one of their enraged constituents, I’d like to bring back the 18th Century practice of tarring and feathering and ride the whole pack of them out of Washington on a 500-foot, barbed-wire entwined rail.

But the question we must ask ourselves is: Do we want these people back in our home towns? Do we want these debauched and morally-retarded individuals, these Charles Mansons in Brooks Brothers suits, these pontificating percolators lurking and loping through our communities again?

Do we want these marauding miscreants turned loose upon us? Are we willing to endure dramatic local crime rate increases just to get them out of Washington? Will we gain an ironic but valuable insight into why Washington’s crime rate is so high? And, perhaps the most critical question of all, do we want to increase our population of practicing attorneys?

If they do come home—whether they’re defeated at the polls or return voluntarily—I feel that citizens must take steps to protect themselves. If these individuals meted out evil during their reign of tenure in our capital, surely they will behave just as atrociously at home. We must have some method of identifying them. Perhaps we could start with their license tags on which they are so fond of displaying single-digit numbers. So we’ll oblige them with the assignment of a number one, but prefixed by the words “Public Enemy.” Forehead branding, maybe, is a bit too cruel, but possibly a small hand tattoo of “MR,” standing for “misrepresentative” would be appropriate.

Of course, we can’t be too telescopic in directing our disapprobation toward the US House of Representatives members and their multifarious collaborators and enablers. Republicans, salivating in puddles of self-righteousness, are pointing damning fingers at the scrambling Democrats. But the only reason there are more Democratic malefactors is because there are more Democrats than Republicans in Congress, and the Democrats have had 77 years of majority rule to finely hone their iniquitous skills.

The problem, I’m afraid, runs much deeper than party affiliation or political philosophy and the national electorate will gradually witness the gruesome machinations of all aspects of government—national, state and local—as the seismic faults of revelation spread.

I think the problem can be traced to similar personality traits in persons who enter politics.

Politicos may espouse different agendas, be pro or con on various issues, or have contrasting deep-seated feelings and thoughts about the means to effect their respective ends, but they all seem to have certain common personality traits:

1. An indestructible, messianic ego. No matter how much they are vilified by the press and their opponents, no matter how easily they become joke fodder for comedians and the general public, no matter what stupid things they say, lies they are caught in, or handshakes they are refused, they keep coming at us like the relentless zombies in “The Night of the Living Dead” tirelessly repeating the same phrase, “I am the best man for the job.” This egoism is often manifested in blatantly arrogant behavior. (See John Sununu under definition of “arrogance” in 1992, Merriam-Webster Dictionary.)
2. A superhuman ability to avoid giving a “yes” or “no” response to any question, even when threatened by bodily harm or even death, though the latter inducement has not actually been tried often enough.
3. An inexplorable willingness to do or say anything in order to get elected (or reelected) to office. For example, visit a chicken processing plant, wear stupid looking hats, ride in a tank, shake hands with people one normally ignores or avoids, or feign a sincere interest in various kinds of snack foods, music or lifestyle behavior that makes one look just like “plain folk.” Does President Bush really believe we think he loves country music and eats pork rinds?
4. An extraordinary ability to fool most of the people all of the time and all of the people most of the time, while smiling.
5. The God-like gift of rendering to the truth a degree of malleability or even making it obsolete (e.g., renaming taxes “revenue enhancements,” making statements “no longer operative,” explaining that the only bounced checks you ever wrote at the House Bank were to charities or to buy stones to put around the Virgin Mary shrine in your backyard).
6. An inability to feel remorse or accept responsibility for ones actions. (e.g., “I never received a single overdraft notice.” “I stand on my record.” “Everybody did it.” “I never inhaled.”).
7. Chameleonic acting ability. Able to adapt themselves to specific environments and to convince the audience that they are share their ideas and concerns. “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
8. Disarming, meretricious, charm. (e.g., “I am mighty proud to be here in (fill in the blank), the greatest state in the US of A.” “I’m just a humble country boy.” “I just wanna help you.”)
9. Almost terminal scruple deficiency. (e.g., “So what if my check to the Girl Scouts bounced, their cookies aren’t that good anyway.”)
10. An incredible knack for attracting unscrupulous, mean-spirited, viperfish and weasel-like creatures as campaign managers and aides. (e.g., any presidential campaign manager.)

It’s my feeling that all politicians have these characteristics, and in fact, I will go so far as to say these attitudes and behaviors make up what should be classified in the DSM (Diagnostic and Dtatistical Manual, used by mental health professionals) as a Politicopathic Personality Disorder.

To assure ourselves and our progeny protection from these people, it should be a law that anyone seeking public office must first undergo a psychological evaluation. Anyone diagnosed with this disorder will not be allowed to run for office.

Just as we would not want a paranoid schizophrenic as a policeman, we don’t want a politicopath as a public office holder. Of course, there will be an option for treatment, and after having conferred with a local psychiatrist, whom I occasionally run into on a weekly basis, together with what valuable information I have gleaned from Doctors “Ruth,” Brothers and Joy Brown over the years, I have developed what I believe to be an appropriate mode of treatment—“Humility Therapy.” This treatment would simply require the aspiring office holder to live as a normal, law-abiding, perkless human being for a year. He or she would have to get a real job, drive his own car or use public transportation, balance a checkbook, use the post office to mail or receive letters only, pay for parking, pay interest on loans, and fork out market prices on medical care, haircuts, meals and vacations. Those completing the therapy would be permitted to run for office.

Election winners could be required to maintain this mundane lifestyle during their entire term of office, since they would always be considered “recovering,” not “recovered” politicopaths.

And while we’re purging and normalizing the behavior of the current incumbents, there is one penultimate, incongruent, insulting and craw-constricting amenity I’d like to eradicate: No longer will they be routinely referred to by their constituents as “The honorable,” or allowed to refer to one another as “my distinguished” or “my estemmed” colleague.

In the future we’ll not tolerate listening to some windbag introduce, via C-Span, one of his check-kiting perk-masters as “my distinguished colleague, good friend and eminent statesman from the great state of (fill in the blank).”

In addition to the ongoing Humility Therapy, it will be incumbent upon all incumbents to receive daily doses of Value Inculcation Therapy:
1. He/she must be able to recite, verbatim, Jimmy Stewart’s speech from “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”
2. He/she must watch “Mr. Rogers” each afternoon and write a report at week’s end explaining how Mr. Rogers helped him/her to be a better public servant.

Though some of what I am suggesting may seem a little drastic, the actions and attitudes of these politicopaths warrant drastic measures. I wonder: should I start with the county council and work up, or with the presidency and work down?