Siegelman and Our Pathological President

I'm not a psychologist, but regular readers know I play one on my blog from time to time.

I'm inspired today to channel my inner Lucy Van Pelt (and put out my "psychological help for 5 cents" sign) by the latest antics of our "commander guy," President George W. Bush.

What is one of the surest signs that someone has a serious personality disorder? My research indicates it's the inability to truly examine the self. In Biblical terms, I would suggest it's the inability to see "the log in your own eye" before noting "the speck in your brother's eye."

If I'm right about that, then our "commander guy" serves up whopping evidence of a personality disorder in a story about his trip to the Middle East in today's New York Times.

In a speech in Egypt, Bush presented a laundry list of things Arab leaders should embrace in order to bring peace to the Middle East. If you have followed the Bush Justice Department scandal at all, be sure you are sitting when you read the following quote:

"Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail," Bush said in an address to the World Economic Forum here, adding, "The time has come for nations across the Middle East to abandon these practices and treat their people with the dignity and respect they deserve."

I hope Don Siegelman didn't have a mouthful of coffee when he read that sentence this morning. If he did, I'm sure the former Alabama governor spewed the coffee clear across his kitchen.

Siegelman, of course, recently spent nine months in federal prison. And what was his crime? Mounting evidence indicates it was being a Democrat, an opposition leader, in a state dominated by Republicans, the "leader in power." And who engineered what increasingly is looking like a sham prosecution and conviction of Siegelman? More and more, it appears it was Alabamians with ties to the Bush administration, through former White House strategist Karl Rove.

Siegelman is far from alone in being targeted for opposing the Bush administration. If attorney Paul Minor and former Mississippi state judges Wes Teel and John Whitfield are able to follow the news in federal prison, I wonder what they thought when they read Bush's quote.

And what about yours truly? One week ago today, I watched as my house was unlawfully "auctioned" on the steps of the Shelby County Courthouse in Columbiana, Alabama. You can catch the action (live and in color!) here, a prime example of what we call "corruption in real time."

Is this what Dubya means when he talks about treating people "with the respect and dignity they deserve?"

And keep this in mind: The attorney in the video, making an unlawful "bid" on my house, is William E. Swatek who has family ties straight to the Bush White House. Swatek's son, Dax Swatek, is a close associate of Bill Canary, who is a close associate of Karl Rove, who is primarily responsible for the eight-year Bush Reign of Error in this country.

So Bill Swatek certainly is a Bush acolyte. Is Swatek capable of seeing the irony of unlawfully stealing someone's property at roughly the same time his commander is spewing high-minded rhetoric in the Middle East? I would say the chances of Swatek, or any other loyal Bushie, having that kind of self awareness is pretty much zero.

Numerous books surely will be written about the Bush administration over the next 10 to 20 years. A suggested title? "A River of Pathology Runs Through It."