Look, we all do it. We hurl about terms like psychopath and narcissist with reckless abandon and almost always without fully understanding the nature of the terms and the subtlety and nuance that goes into a clinical diagnosis.
Former PM Kevin Rudd was labelled “a psychopath” by former MP Steve Gibbons, and “a psychopathic narcissist” by former NSW premier Kristina Keneally. Peter Garrett ratcheted it up a notch by calling Rudd “a megalomaniac”. And that’s just the diagnoses from within Rudd’s own party. Why, the man must be a veritable walking copy of the psychiatric bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
It is arguably true that Canberra is a magnet for narcissists of various stripes. In fact, anyone who wants to get into the caper knows that getting elected to parliament involves a bevy of posters featuring their name and smiling face being nailed to lampposts and wedged in front gardens all over their home suburb. It has to be more satisfying than looking in the mirror for hours.
The trouble is, once these narcissists get to Canberra, they find themselves outgunned by bigger, badder, more vain, more hollow, more manipulative narcissists. Interacting with narcissists more narcissistic than they are must be a real blow to their bloated egos.
Full column here.
Getting rid of the centre bounce that is bullshit.
Have they got rid of it, or are they just bullshitting about it?
The great Liberal Party Narcissist, bitter ousted ex PM Tony Abbott, methinks has gone way too far today in displaying his nasty wreaking character. Goodbye Tony, timing is everything buddy! Maybe Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott can for the “Narcissist Party”!
Turnbull would knife them both in the back and take the top job, Henry. He’s the cock of the walk.
Could be Tony and Cory have quietly kissed and made up Henry, with a view to a Mad Mick party of holy righteous crusaders. The Bott isn’t so much burning his bridges as blowing them to bits.
My ring side analysis is “narcissistic megalomaniac exhibiting signs of dementia pugilistica.” If any fancy trick cyclist wants to argue the toss, let ’em try. I’ll dazzle them with bullshit.
Interesting Mr Baptiste and who knows he may be wanting to break his own “‘outstanding” record of 30 consecutive negative Newspolls! Cheers big buddy.
Nice to see Abbott’s blind ideology still has relevance (in his own mind) but stick your advice Tony, any further to the right & the Fibs will be advocating slavery.
All that drives these gits is winning elections, not governing in the national interest and none know the first thing about morals or ethics.
Maybe Tones should sweet-talk Hanson & join One Nation, you know, the other radical neo-conservative mob the Fibs are doing dirty deals with in WA to retain government. It’d be a dream gig for Tones right now cos they’re none too concerned about enunciation either.
Bella…given the history between Abbott and young Pauline, not sure it would be a partnership made in heaven
Abbott is behaving in much the same way as Rudd. Only difference will be the outcome. Rudd, rather amazingly, got the leadership back to save the party to some extent.
Abbott will not achieve the same. Instead he will split his party and his white-anting will possibly hand government to Labor.
Who knows, maybe that’s his longterm plan for a comeback as leader in opposition.
Narcissism is notoriously difficult to diagnose but it seems to have become a popular diagnosis for disliked politicians.
Agree with your comments 100% Boadicea and this is the man who said he would not do any white anting! The master of the backflip Abbott reviled by the Public and his own Party!
He’s certainly playing the same game as Rudd did, HB. Only difference is that they won’t bring him back to save he party. Maybe his longterm goal is to see them lose government. But I can’t see him ever being leader again – not even in opposition – which he was quite good at.
Whooeee the wind changes quick down there.
His new plan seems to be just to burn down the house. He’s always seemed a weird guy, but now he’s off the leash and doesn’t seem to care any more.
On the other hand he’s always had a tendency to say whatever the audience he can see in front of him wants to hear, apparently forgetting that it will be instantly relayed to the rest of the world, who may be less impressed.
This recent speech to a particularly right-wing audience is a case in point. While in that room, he gave voice to their shared delusion that the LibNats need to lurch rightward to stay relevant, despite the obvious fact that both polls and election results indicate that, if anything, the mainstream is a smidgen to the left of where the party is now. Once outside that room, he insisted with apparent sincerity that the PM has his support. Poor fellow seems to live in a perpetual present.
It is bizarre behaviour JOH. Hard to fathom what he’s up to. Some of the stuff he is saying might well be justified – only problem is that it’s against the party he claims to support.
But it seems this is what he is good at – getting rid of sitting PM’s!!
He is as determined as Rudd was to get his revenge I guess. Just a little more subtle than KR.
I think that’s the word for it Boadicea ‘revenge’ & even for him, it is demoralizing that he can’t see a place for himself in the party, if it’s not as PM.
Being kept on the backbench may have been the last straw for a man as deluded as he still is.
His hatred of Turnbull runs deep.
Regards, Bella
Yes, certainly seems so Bella. Silly man. He should quit and go on the speaking circuit or something lucrative.
Meanwhile he certainly is damaging the party he professes to love and support wholeheartedly. He continues to make himself look foolish.
It’s difficult to reconcile his current behaviour with the man who declared ”there will be no white-anting from me” – yeah, sure.
JTI,
Before it gets lost in the wash can we establish one ‘fact’ demonstrated by indisputable long-term experience both public and private; KR was and is a foul-mouthed, bullying, megalomaniac !!
There are in Abbottabad a legion of witnesses of all political persuasions and none, who can and have attested to his behaviour that meets any required set of diagnostic criteria.
Having thus established a benchmark, comparisons can adopt a shorthand for example KR+, KR++ or KR- , KR–!!
Now of course that invites the POTUS diagnosis – perhaps KR- ; but with of course a much longer tenure to come!!
See, that’s what I’m talking about, PLMO. I know some ripping KR stories but as I’m no shrink I couldn’t possibly rate it on any scale.
The Hawke government was the best government in my time, and i have listened to some of his cabinet colleagues make jokes about the pm’s narcissistic personality disorder, as they used to describe it. A former deputy used to delight in giving examples.
Hawke was still a great PM.
There are even more Rudd stories than Hawke stories, but there is one big difference. Hawke ran a proper Cabinet government and his comrades basically liked him well enough. Neither is true in Rudd’s case.
Hawke may have been a teensy-weensy bit narcissistic but he had a huge capacity for empathy with the punters. Kevin not so much.
Agreed Jack, I know I was not alone in liking Hawke immensely, so much so that when Keating replaced him, I vowed and declared I would NEVER vote Labor again…..and yet it didn’t take long for me to change my mind and like Keating as well…..sorry Milton.
Ah those were the days..
Keating for President of Australia.
I think the current crop of leaders are quite pedestrian when compared to some of the Roman Emperors.
Unless they can do tests on your brain i’m guessing that all psychiatrists and psychologists have to go on is what you tell them or how you answer their tests, which follow the lines of agree, strongly agree and so on.
Potus Trump would be funny if he wasn’t so dangerous.
I can’t believe he’s STILL obsessed with his inauguration turnout but he made that blatantly obvious AGAIN when he was at the CIA standing in front of a commemorative wall dedicated to those agents killed in the line of duty. Surely only an insensitive twit with a crippling need for admiration would choose that moment to dispute his crowd numbers.
If he has ranting temper tantrums over what is so trivial, can you even imagine how his ‘impairments’ will affect his judgement when the stakes are much higher.
Putting aside my personal loathing of demented soul-less hunters like his sons, I believe the USA has entered into very dark & dangerous times with a mental loose cannon in the oval office.
Hold on America, impeachment will be swift.
Bella
Dictator trump is a bullshit artist exhibiting signs of oldtimers.
I like POTUS Trump, Dismayed, he has “pluck” and is slowly easing himself into the job nicely. I see he wants to build up the USA’s Nuclear Arsenal, wise given fruitcakes like Kim Jong-Un! P.S. Trump also loves Coal like me.
Yep just like you bullshit artist. Stuck in 1950.
He is actually joking Dismayed….
Distressingly, no he isn’t.
Yes, to characterise “old timers” with the undesirable attribute of being “bullshit artists” is manifestly and unjustly attempting to tar them all with the same brush.
It’s scraping the bottom of a crappy barrel that’s for sure. It’s also a contemptuous slur on our elderly folk, many of whom are unable to defend themselves.
And of course, the irony is that those who usually offer such gratuitous comments appear to believe Alzheimer’s and old timers are one and the same.
The cons on this blog are all bullshit artists.
I’m sure the cons you refer to feel exactly the same way as you do about the other side, Dismayed
It’s good that you’ve found some common ground,
Don’t start this bullshit again…
We are all begging you to just ignore her and give it up! Please. Spots, leopards? We are not that dumb, don’t you be.
Excellent advice Wraith. Couldn’t have put it better myself. Let’s hope he takes it!
Takes one to know one.
Sorry I must object, our Dalmatian was a far better psychologist than my sister’s Labrador.
Well spotted, Penny!?
Stop being so black and white Milton. It’ll drive you barking mad.
JtI
Jack, you ask; Whatever happened to calling someone a bullshit artist and leaving it at that?”
It’s a good question, and a chap named Harry Frankfurt wrote an essay over a decade ago on the subject of “bullshit” in the context of communication. Harry (a philosopher) compared “bullshitters” with “liars”.
He contended that bullshitters don’t care if what they say is true or false, their main intention is to persuade the listener. Whereas the liar does care about the truth and attempts to hide it.
I think there’s some truth in what Harry says.
Following on from TBLS’s criticism in the previous topic concerning the quality of some posters comments on here, a relevant question for consideration may be; are batshitters more boring than bullshitters, or vice versa?
Harry Frankfurt, Carl? That sounds like bullshit to me.
FrankNfurt’s brother
Was he the guy wearing girls undergarments in The Rocky Horror Picture show. Carl? Now he could certainly do with a lay down on Freud’s couch.
Great minds think alike Milton
TBLS’s criticisms might elicit a question, but it might be pushing it a bit to claim the question is relevant. It’s subjective anyway.
As to your question, the difference between a reply and an answer? You reply to questions Carl, other people answer them.
Cheers.
I remember that, Carl, it was a whole book on the topic:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691122946/
Frankfurt is a Princeton philosophy professor, and his thesis was that bullshit is a greater enemy of truth than lies, which at least require an awareness of truth. This has since been vindicated by the internet, which is basically a big pile of truth, lies and bullshit all jumbled up randomly together, and has turned out to be a more effective way to hide truth than the most determined efforts of the great liars of history.
It seems at least that we both know our bullshit John, where others appear to be sceptical.
cheers
Good read Mr Insider and goodness me the World riddled with all sorts of “crazies” going back to the Stone Age. Even if Trump is a Narcissist its too late now he is POTUS, although that in the end could be the undoing of him. What I wonder was Adolf Hitler?
“What I wonder was Adolf Hitler?” Drug addled, f**kwit with a megalomania streak perhaps. Had a head like ten mile of bad road so I doubt he was a narcissist. Could be wrong though.
I have a piece up my sleeve on Hitler’s drug use and clearly that contributed to his mental and physical deterioration. He was also a vegetarian who ate a lot of beans. One of te benefits of being Der Fuhrer was no one would ever call him out on his chronic flatulence.
Fascinated, Mr Insider, let us hear it asap! Theodor Morell was his Doctor who kept him pumped for of all sorts of “exotics”
Lots of evidence on Hitler having a series of strokes. Now that can seriously mess with your mental state. Toward the end they were all about covering up how impaired he had become, to their own inevitable demise.
Watched a doco on National Geographic about the subject of Nazis and methamphetamines which must have been just the right fuel for Blitzkreig warfare. Very enlightening doco.
His flatulence, hmmm, wonder if anyone was executed for remarking on it, or showing distaste. Especially given the bean diet. The drugs would have made it worse if a friend of mine is to be believed. He used to drive taxis and he reckoned you can tell when a amphetamine user has flatulence, the smell was putrid according to him.
Ice was the drug of choice for Luftwaffe pilots, Mack.
Or he blamed it on his dog…
Blondi vos ein sehr stinkender Hund.
Bloody hell Penny I’m sure I thought of that first but you get printed up first because you’re in Penang and 2 hours ahead!
I would have suspected the German Shepherd’s, Blondi and Muckl, for the farts.
No doubt in secret he was known as the fumer!
Waffen SS too Jack, according to the doco. US pilots flying Mustangs when doing high altitude bomber escorts were given benzedrine if they wanted it too.
The Wehrmacht prohibited it after the 1940. Too many of the soldiery hung over and listless afterwards. Some even lost it and shot and killed officers. Pervitin was the TM. Loaded up with methamphetamine.
A Physiatrists nightmare Adolf was Mack but doubt he ever saw one!