Meta Apology

Bush today:

I told [King Abdullah] I was sorry for the humiliation suffered by the Iraqi prisoners, and the humiliation suffered by their families. I told him I was equally sorry that people who have been seeing those pictures didn't understand the true nature and heart of America. I assured him Americans, like me, didn't appreciate what we saw, that it made us sick to our stomachs. I also made it clear to His Majesty that the troops we have in Iraq, who are there for security and peace and freedom, are the finest of the fine, fantastic United States citizens, who represent the very best qualities of America: courage, love of freedom, compassion, and decency.

How nice of our Narcissist-in-Chief:

The essential feature of the narcissistic personality disorder is a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy (DSM-IV™, 1994, p. 658)...Kantor (1992, pp. 203-204) describes the clinical characteristics of NPD as:

• inordinate self-pride;


• self-concern;


• an exaggeration of the importance of one's experiences and feelings;


• ideas of perfection;


• a reluctance to accept blame or criticism;


• absence of altruism although gestures may be made for the sake of appearance;


• empathy deficit; and,


• grandiosity.

Yes, Bush's meta apology is a sign of his real pathology. Hey, if Krauthammer can diagnose people from afar, so can I...

ntodd

[Update: apparently Bush's crap passes as a real apology for the AP's Terence Hunt: President Bush, struggling to control a growing crisis, apologized Thursday for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers and called it "a stain on our country's honor." Puhleeze!]