Political Derangement Syndrome

Whatever else Obama has or has not done, he has raised “Political Derangement Syndrome” in this nation to new, and often amusing, heights. PDS has always been around, but the last three presidents have made it more visible and have increased its role in political discourse. PDS used to be reserved for the lunatic fringe, but today it has entered the lexicon of mainstream media and the floor of Congress.

PDS cast Bill Clinton in the role of the murderer of Vince Foster and pretty much anyone else who crossed him either politically or financially, had him engaged in land fraud schemes, travel schemes in the White House, and stealing the W’s from the keyboards on the White House computers.

He actually did have sex with an intern in the Oval Office, it turns out, so we have to give his opponents a little bit of credit on that one.

The PDS sufferers during the Bush years were on his side, claiming that “the surge” worked and, prior to that, that Iraq was to blame for 9/11 and really did have WMD’s, which we didn’t find only because they were moved to Syria right before we invaded. Why that did not necessitate the invasion and destruction of Syria has never been made clear.

PDS has infected both sides in the Obama era, however, with supporters claiming, for instance, that he ended the war in Iraq. Actually he merely followed the “Status of Forces Agreement” entered into between Bush and Maliki, and he didn’t do that by choice. He spent more than a year negotiating for permission to keep our troops there longer, and failed, so he took us out of Iraq on Bush’s schedule and under protest.

And don’t even get me started on PDS defense of “health care reform.”

Opponents are even less rational, however, calling his corporatist policies “socialism,” even though they are far closer to fascism than socialism. Some of them do call him a fascist with socialist policies, seeing no contradiction in that, and most of them call him a Muslim, as if it would matter even if it was true.

Both sides make lists of his “accomplishments” and credit him with everything from walking on water on one extreme to spreading the Bubonic Plague on the other. One such list by Doug Ross credits him, for instance with being the “First President to press for a ‘treaty giving a UN body veto power over the use of our territorial waters and rights to half of all offshore oil revenue’ (The Law Of The Sea Treaty).”

First of all, The Law Of The Sea Treaty doesn’t do that, or anything close to that, and since George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush all pressed for ratification of the treaty, Obama is the fourth president to do that, not the first.

So, dog on the menu or dog on the roof of the car? Are you voting for a Muslim or a Mormon? These are important decisions because this is, according to a consensus of the PDS community, “the most important election this nation has ever faced,” either because it gets rid of Obama or because it keeps him in office, depending on point of view.