Is McCain Sane? Mentally Ill?

[barts]

In all the time I've been a political junkie, I have never heard someone lie so consistently as John McCain. Everyday he says things that are not just distortions or enhanced interpretations but outright "white is black" lies about himself, about his running mate, and about his opponents. It's not just his ads. It happens in face to face interviews, too.

The lies are so consistent, and he lacks any nuance of chagrin or artifice when he makes them up and repeats them that I fear he, in fact, believes his own lies, just as Reagan, towards the end of his second term, could not distinguish between his movie roles and his real life.

I think McCain suffers from mental illness or deterioration--dementia, Alzheimer's disease, perhaps.

Or--let me be charitable--maybe, his military training which likely included how to respond if captured by the enemy has kicked in so that he can lie plausibly even while under duress.

At any rate, watching him on television say things that are outright lies--lies that have been exposed as such for days--is truly frightening. Even when it's pointed out to him that he's lying and he's confronted with the irrefutable evidence, he denies it. Add his awkward forced grin, and he looks mentally ill to me. If he's like this now, what will he be like in four years? As President?

[Nono]

In that case you must be kinda young, barts:

Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in.

[Matt W]

*sighs* This is pretty much exactly the same as a previous thread. If you want to comment on McCain lying, you've already started a thread to do so. Keep it there.

[barts]

*sighs* This is pretty much exactly the same as a previous thread. If you want to comment on McCain lying, you've already started a thread to do so. Keep it there.

I don't want to comment on McCain lying, but rather the notion that his lying is a symptom of a pathology.

[Matt W]

It's much the same and can be discussed as such. Any more of these threads and they'll be merged.

[another day]

Of course he's insane, they all are.

However I do think he might be developing dementia or alzheimers. He seems slow and confused, he has strange facial reactions and he's about that age to begin developing it.

[Morality Games]

Typically we call McCain's type of "insanity" getting old. Unless you exercise your mind through continuous examination of tough concepts, your ability to think critically diminishes toward your seventies. I doubt McCain is an avid reader, or someone who thinks about complex ideas for recreational purposes.

McCain isn't lying because he is insane either. Republican campaign strategists are Machiavellian in their methods. They know they can depend on the lord's share of their constituency not to investigate the accusations or claims made by their candidates. It's not in the nature of Republicans to challenge the truth of the bad things their leaders say about their enemies. Usually they are predisposed to believe the absolute worst of the people they are up against, and the absolute best of the politicians they are supporting. To be honest, Republican politicians barely have to try, especially since right wing opinion journalists and radio hosts are doing most of the work for them.

For a number of reasons, the Democrats aren't quite as lucky.