I'm sure others have noticed that ad for "The President's Therapist." What are your

[Jackpine Radical]

thoughts about it? From the ad, it is supposedly a piece of thinly disguised fiction that tells a story of an alcoholic, thoroughly messed-up George Bush.

I have some problem with the whole business. First, it is billed as fiction but then treated as if it were real. If the "insider information" really did come from a psychologist who had been treating Bush, it would be an unthinkable breach of ethics for the psychologist to violate his patient's confidentiality by giving out these details. I can't imagine very many psychologists willing to do something like that because they would not only lose their license, they could go to prison, and certainly could be massively sued for malpractice.

Second, supposing the source of information was not a psychologist (let's imagine Laura talked or something) if the allegations in the book are true (or close to the truth), is it at all helpful to put them forward in the garb of fiction? Wouldnt it be better to just come straight out with the allegations?

My suspicion is that the guy actually did get some fairly good information but his sources weren't willing to publicly substantiate what they told him. He would not dare to go forward with a straight nonfiction book, so he did it as fiction to provide himself with a slender defense against libel. But again, I am not at all sure he did the world any service by fictionalizing it.

Over to you...

[BrklynLiberal]

1. There was a book about this..It was all theoretical since Bush never really sat down with Frank. But

he was able to draw some conclusions from the public behavior.

Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of a President is a 2004 book by psychoanalyst Justin Frank. The central premise of Frank's book is that President George W. Bush displays signs of poor mental health which makes him ill-suited to rule the most powerful nation on earth. Frank suggests Bush suffers from megalomania, that he is probably incapable of true compassion and shows signs of sadism, and that as an untreated alcoholic, is in constant danger of a relapse. Further, in Frank's opinion, Bush manifests the symptoms of a dry drunk, principally irritability, judgmentalism and a rigid, inflexible world view. Frank also analyses, amongst other things, Bush’s tendency to mix up his metaphors and concludes Bush has substantial problems with abstract, flexible thinking.

An updated version of the book was released in October, 2007, including a new introduction and a new afterword.

from Wikipedia

[GoesTo11]

2. This is a take off on a funny 1960s movie

The President's Analyst, with James Coburn in the title role as a groovy swinger and savior of the nation.

[Jackpine Radical]

5. I'm familiar with Frank's book.

[Vanje]

3. I hate that ad!

I followed the link and had a hard time understanding WTF I was seeing.
It wasted my time.
I think its someone's shittily made-up shitty shit.
Its dishonest. Unworthy of our attention.
I felt duped.

I HATE the ad.

[Vanje]

4. Good information? How do you figure

Its more likely the author just pulled everything out of his butt. In the absence of legitimate claims to the contrary, why should I beleive otherwise?

[Jackpine Radical]

6. I certainy can't prove you're wrong.

Maybe it's just that, like a lot of other people, I'm pretty willing to entertain almost anything unflattering that comes along about Bush.

[catzies]

7. I don't know, but is the WWN listed there the Weekly World News? that means

BATBOY comes from the same source. :rofl:

[Jackpine Radical]

8. That would explain a lot, wouldn't it?

[Richard Brittle]

9. The President's Therapist

I don't like to give an opinion unless I know what I'm talking about so when saw the fuss the president's therapist was creating I went out and bought it. It was a real grabber that told what seemed to be the whole sordid truth yet also treated W very kindly. Seemed to have been written by a real therapist who really did want to help him. I've read it twice now and I still can't tell whether it it fact or fiction. What made it great was that a real--and really smart--therapist sat down with W and gently got him to face up to the awful things he's done (such as sending 4000 U.S. soldiers to death for nothing and legalizing torture). The sessions all seemed very real, perhaps most especially those with W and laura at the Crawford ranch. I certainly got the feeling that the therapist had actually visited the place. The ending came as a shock and made me wonder about the Dr. Alter ad. If W hasn't read the book he should. I think it could be incredibly helpful to him. But I have a hunch that he already has. I say than because he and his people recently seemed to be answering some points made in the book, especially in that final weird letter to the obama girls where the bush twins (or the bush pr flaks, more likely) said "if you think you know our father you don't." Seemed a clear swipe at the book to me. Anyway, fact or fiction, it was great read and left me feeling smarter.

[Jackpine Radical]

10. Very interesting.

Again my problem is that if there is real substance deriving from an actual therapeutic relationship here, the therapist has no business revealing it.

[librechik]

11. I found the ad garbled and illiterate

The idea is a natural--but this author is not credible