Is Newt Nuts?

[n2doc]

Consider the symptoms: Bouts of grandiosity, megalomania, irritability, impulsiveness, spending sprees …
By Jacob Weisberg|Posted Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011, at 7:11 AM ET

I spent last weekend absorbed in The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides’ new novel about three Brown students in the early 1980s. The most captivating character in the book is the manic-depressive Leonard Bankhead and its most compelling passages depict the ravages of his illness. When he doesn’t take his proper dose of lithium, Leonard becomes a superhero in his own mind, overflowing with self-confidence and charisma, before he inevitably crashes. Eugenides has protested, rather unconvincingly, that his portrait of Leonard is not drawn from David Foster Wallace, who suffered from depression and killed himself in 2008. But the real-life character I kept thinking about while I was reading wasn’t Wallace. It was Newt Gingrich.

We’re quick to describe politicians whose views we find extreme or whose behavior seems odd as “crazy,” and perhaps anyone who runs for president in some sense is. But I’ve long wondered whether Newt Gingrich merits that designation in a more clinical sense. I’m not a psychiatrist, of course, and it’s impossible to diagnose someone at a distance. Without medical records that he hasn’t released, we can’t know whether Gingrich may have inherited his mother’s manic depression. Nevertheless, one observes in the former House Speaker certain symptoms—bouts of grandiosity, megalomania, irritability, racing thoughts, spending sprees—that go beyond the ordinary politician’s normal narcissism.

One possibility is that Newt suffers, and benefits from, the milder affliction of hypomania. In his 2005 book The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between (a Little) Craziness and (a Lot of) Success in America, John D. Gartner, a Johns Hopkins psychiatrist, argues that this form of extreme optimism explains the achievements of everyone from Christopher Columbus to Andrew Carnegie. Gartner writes: “Hypomanics are brimming with infectious energy, irrational confidence, and really big ideas. They think, talk, move, and make decisions quickly. Anyone who slows them down with questions 'just doesn't get it.’” Hypomanics lack discipline, act on impulse, suffer from over-confidence, and often lack judgment.

Sound like anyone you’ve seen on Fox News recently? Several years ago, Gartner himself described Gingrich as “our last great hypomanic figure.” There is, however, no clear boundary between the productive state of hypomania and Charlie Sheen. Often, Gingrich sounds closer to the latter. When in an ebullient mood, he grabs the nearest microphone and begins propounding the theory that only he can save the world from imminent destruction. Sometimes Gingrich is leading a revolution. Sometimes he’s preventing one. It doesn’t matter. Only he can do it.
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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_big_idea/2011/12/is_newt_gingrich_nuts_consider_the_symptoms_.html

[Fire Walk With Me]

1. Suddenly, savage depths of selfishness aren't trendy.

:shrug:

[spanone]

2. yes.

[Flubadubya]

3. It would be interesting to know...

if he has ever been diagnosed with bipolar illness. Hypomania, depression, racing thoughts, irritability, and narcissistic traits are all often part of the overall bipolar picture. Such a diagnosis wouldn't surprise me a bit - that is, if he has ever actually seen a psychiatrist.

Even if he hasn't, I'd be willing to bet that after an evaluation session or two, any psychiatrist worth his salt would probably come up with the diagnosis of either bipolar I or II disorder.

Gingrich also manifests quite strong antisocial tendencies(i.e. apparently endorsing repeal of the child labor laws for example). Not to mention all the other anti-poor and antisocial attitudes and behaviors he displays.

Whether he has ever had a psychotic break or not, who knows, but just imagine him with the nuclear football in his valise.

Oh, mon dieu, quelle horreur!! :wow::nuke::crazy:

[Aerows]

4. Well THAT's enough to give a sane person nightmares

Newt with his finger on the button.

[barbtries]

5. all the more reason

to make sure the sane candidate remains in office for another term. bush and cheney and their sicknesses did enough damage; i can not imagine having to go through four or eight years with any republican after that. no, no no

[Rex]

6. Yes.

[femrap]

7. Yes. nt.

[eridani]

8. I'd call him an amoral sociopath myself n/t

[quinnox]

9. Oh hell yea, the guy is truly dangerous and shouldn't come

within an inch of the presidency. I fear for not only our country but the world if this little megalomaniac came to power. I have to think that would only really happen in a scienfictionesque nightmare.