Wells Hall Off Topic Board

I agree with this. And the ones who attain success would claim, in the immortal words of Kid Rock, "It ain't bragging motherfucker if you can back it up."

I think "most" (never say "all") high achievers have a high degree of self confidence. And as Sprtnbrn said, "whether that level translates to narcissism is an entirely different debate."

I've been doing a lot of studying on the topic of mental preparation for athletes as of late. Those at the highest levels of their sport often believe they are one of the best, if not THE best at what they do. They have supreme confidence in their skills and abilities. I don't think it's a stretch to say that similar attitudes would apply to a situation like a governor or president.

Bingo and it brings up one of my favorite debates from the other board regarding Tiger Woods. Some people seemed shocked that Tiger thought he could and deserved to bag any woman he wanted. I thought the opposite. It was a natural part of being told that he alone was possibly the greatest golfer ever. When you hear that and start to believe it, of course he wanted everything including women. Phil Mickelson always thought he could make the impossible shot and at least had to try (there's always a chance). No wonder he was a degenerate gambler. Individual sport athletes are wired in such a way that they have to believe those things.

I thought we weren't supposed to cut and paste non-sourced quotes. What is the source of the information you are posting?

Right. I guess I was over-simplifying because to me, you can't get to that point of "I know what's best for others" without some serious confidence. You make an interesting point about politics vs. sport and the ability to determine just how good you are. O. rode a pretty big wave of support into the White House. For a politician, achieving the highest office in the land has to be akin to winning the U.S. Open, or the Indy 500, or something like that. Whether or not he ever articulated any messages would be irrelevant. To me that's like Nancy Pelosi stating that we needed to pass the health care bill in order to find out what's in the health care bill. That's some serious self-confidence that she's right, and dammit don't question me just do it I don't have time to be questioned by inferior talents.

There is no such thing as a neutral source. I was not quoting statistics. I simply read an article that was a take on the President that I have seen written about many times before in varying forms. I happened to agree with that view of the "chosen one" now that I have had 4 years to observe and learn about him. He thinks he is a genius, he is certain he is never wrong, he will obfuscate, take license, misdirect, and out right lie as if he believes he is creating the truth simply with his utterance of the words. My point is not based in any one article, the president's narcissism has been discussed by mainstream conservative guys like Will, Krauthammer, Sowell and all over the political blogosphere for along time now.

The article was by some guy named David Kupelian. It is an opinion piece. This thread was meant to be about opinions of BHO's psychopathy. I googled is Obama a narcissist or sociopath. The article came up. I read it and agreed with much of it. Since it wasn't really a statistical or historical premise, I neglected to source the few paragraphs I posted. How about this one. You know Dr. Krauthammer and National Review right?

"Americans are beginning to notice Obama’s elevated opinion of himself. There’s nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?"

Ooooo. You use such big words pumpkin. You know he is a tool. A pseudo intellectual blank slate. His handlers have nurtured his narcissistic self delusion to it's peak. He is now on a downward trajectory...no longer projecting hope and change...now it's just desperate bitter class warfare and divisive group politics in a hope to hang on for a second term.

No. Not at all....he is going down. The funny thing is it will be to another establishment vanilla Republican candidate. Romney wins as the "anybody but BHO" candidate. The far left thought this was the end game. He was the handpicked Manchurian candidate because the silver ponytails thought the people were ready for revolution from within. They miscalculated. His attack ads reek of desperation. He has no record to run on. Hope and change fooled us once. They know it won't work again...we have seen his idea of what that means. So now it's just "fairness" and "forward" and class envy. Didn't define hope or change...now won't define fairness or forward... to what? Americans may be gullible...but not that gullible.

Stupid thread. My wife has worked on psychiatric wards, and she says that until you do, the DSM (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, now in its fourth edition) is just words on a page. You read half the diagnoses in there, and they sound like any number of people. Then you work in a psychiatric word, and you have an "ah ha" moment. You see that the words/definitions actually signify. They're not just little inkblots you can project on.

Having said that, there are only a few politicians who strike me as worthy of diagnosis. Many are extremely narcissistic. For example, people love to point to Newt Gingrich as someone who supposedly has Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and that makes a certain amount of sense, since he is given to making statements like "People like me are what stand between us and Auschwitz," but for my money he's more just a bloated, self-important asshole than someone with a genuine personality disorder (I might be wrong).

For that matter, to the degree that many--most?--Republicans believe that virtually anyone suffering any misfortune has brought it on themselves (their perverse application of "personal responsibility"), lack of empathy is almost a prerequisite for membership in the GOP.

Nonetheless, only a few politicians seem demonstrably off. Sorry, GOPers, Obama ain't one of them.

The two politicians that strike me as being odd almost to the point of nuttiness (and I don't pretend to be able to diagnose exactly what is wrong with them) are Michelle Bachmann and Allen West. As for Democrats, it's possible that Clinton had something cooking there with his sexual behavior. It went beyond Monica Lewinski, you know.

I wonder if that's still true re Krauthammer. I used to disagree with him but thought he was intelligent, etc. Of course, that's when Bush was in office. Since Bush left office, he's struck me more as a professional propagandist than anything else. Is this because he's now a member of the "out" party, or is it because that party has continued to move to the right? Can't say. At any rate, since I don't work in an office anymore where I'm among people who share opinions about people like him, I don't know if that feeling is widely shared. I'd be surprised if it weren't.

You should know by now that anything Grr is against or cannot comprehend is Republican think tank propaganda.