From the front page of the Washington Post website:
Will Bachmann rise under pressure?
Questions that surfaced about her migraines come at a critical juncture for her presidential campaign.
By the way, did you know that Michelle Bachmann suffers from migraines? Just checking ...
Cough migraines Cough.
Look, I'm all in favor of the intimate health details of anybody who wants to be President being blared everywhere.
Not that I think the President's health is all that important anymore. It's not like the early 1960s and JFK shows up for a summit conference with Khrushchev all doped up for one of his many ailments and so Khrushchev thinks JFK is a weakling and sets the Cuban Missile Crisis in motion. Thank God we don't live in that world anymore. I think we live in a world more like that of James Garfield. The poor man lingered on his deathbed after being shot on July 2, 1881 until his death on September 19. And we all know the many disastrous consequences that almost ensued from that, such as ... Well, I can't think of any off hand, but there was probably something important involving bimetalism.
Anyway, my point is that if you want to be President and thus be famous forever (like, say, James Garfield, who had less than 4 months in office before getting shot, but we still all know his name), we, the voters ought to get to know about you. So, I'm all for the press inquiring into every candidate's health.
But, that mean's every candidate -- not just the ones the media doesn't like -- all the candidates, like JFK and Barack Obama. As you may recall, John McCain released 1100 pages of his medical records, while Barack Obama released a one-page summary. It appears to me from reading Obama's memoirs that the President suffered some sort of mental health problems in the early 1980s and in 2000. Did he seek medical attention?
Answering those kind of questions is exactly the kind of awareness-raising that running for President ought to entail. My experience going through life is that a whole lot more people than you might think run into mental health problems at various points, and that seeking help sometimes helps.
For example, one of my readers pointed out to me a few years ago that Obama's account of his depressed mood after losing the 2000 House primary included a phrase common in cognitive behavioral therapy. I found his observation interesting, in part because I had never heard of cognitive behavioral therapy. So, I read up on CBT, a very level-headed form of talk therapy that tries to talk people out of the mental ruts they're stuck in, and it sounds like a good thing, something that could help some number of people, if they ever heard of it (which I, a relatively well-informed 48-year-old, hadn't ... until somebody brought in up in the context of a candidate for the White House)
I have no idea if Obama tried CBT, but, if he did, who better a spokesman for how it can change your life than the President?
But all that sort of thing is off-limits, because he's Obama.
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52 comments:
I don't know, I think needing to see a pshrink is an important piece of information that would affect my voting decisions. Not from a stigmatizing point of view, mind you, but it would be good to know if someone has snapped in the past, and how likely they are to do it again.
WRT to Obama, it really disturbs me that he keeps so much hidden that other (potential) candidates don't have a problem sharing. We don't get to know anything about the man other than an ink-black Luo had a dalliance with his mother.
"Will Bachmann rise under pressure?"
Is she a loaf of bread or something? Where do they get these headlines?
Pssst. Check this out.
From the Jerusalem Post:
"Why do US Jews still vote for Obama?"
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=229779
The commenters talking about the Goyim in a very frank manner,
More specifically, they're talking about the conservative Goyim.
At the southwest base of the US Capitol there is a statue of Garfield in the middle of a small traffic circle. In the eighties and nineties, before 9/11, before a cop on every corner, I used to bring my dogs to swim in the reflecting pool right there. Early on Sunday mornings, with two dripping dogs standing beside me, I would occasionally stop and read the inscription on the statue. Garfield did it all, he punched all his temporal tickets. The inscription says he was a general, senator, representative and President. However it does not say he was a community organizer, perhaps if it did say that some jackass would not have shot him and he'd have more than a crummy statue in a traffic circle.
Imagine if Obama had suffered debilitating migraines at key points in his presidency. Someone else would have had to develop the TALF program as the market was crashing in March 2009. He might have had to let Pelosi take charge of rounding up the troops for one last successful vote for passage of the health care act. Or he might have ended up just rubber-stamping entry into a war on the advice of a 40-year old Irish human rights advocate. And on Iraq and Afghanistan, he might have ended up dithering for months- years - rather than making the bold decisions he has.
I have mixed feelings about reports of Rep. Backmann having migraines. On the one hand have seen several people deal bravely with the condition, in my family and where I used to work. But on the other have seen the condition cause a great deal of suffering in the same people frequently, where working effectively was not possible for a good period of time.
Personally feel she would do best curing her condition instead of masking symptoms with drugs. But that is just my opinion.
As was pointed out elsewhere, we are becoming Sovietized, with the official, media recognized politicians as paragons of virtue and health, while the opposition needs to be institutionalized.
Look, O is an International Man of Mystery - the Imom Obama. Can't you just let him be?
Yeah, she's been getting the Palin treatment since the first debate. Are there other candidates? I haven't heard of them, but I read something unflattering about Bachmann twice a day...
For example, one of my readers pointed out to me a few years ago that Obama's account of his depressed mood after losing the 2000 House primary included a phrase common in cognitive behavioral therapy. I found his observation interesting, in part because I had never heard of cognitive behavioral therapy. So, I read up on CBT...
Or at least Bill Ayers knew enough about CBT to have included it in the pseudo-auto-biography.
.
Bachmann's health problems are indeed something the voters have a right to know about. All candidates should have to release the important parts of their health records.
This is a pretty important job we are talking about.
I still get the sense that there are some posters here at Isteve that don't want Bachmann to be president because she grew up non elite.
There is a strange rejection of meritocracy here... a strange sense that people who rise too far above their grandparents' station in life are to be scorned.
Half, you are going to get a skewed view of the classes from living in Manhattan.
I just don't think most posters here understand how expensive it is in Boston, NYC or another downtown residential neighborhood. in most of the usa simply being upper middle class means having a three thousand square foot house with four bedrooms. Four bedrooms so that you can have two kids each with their own bedroom, and an extra bedroom for mom or dad to use as a home office and or for guests to use.
Having a three thousand square foot home leads to family formation. Feeling cramped in to something smaller leads to small families.
Let's look at three thousand square foot house as baseline upper middle class
In manhattan, a three thousand square foot apartment costs, minimum four million dollars.
So in order to have the basic living space of a normal upper middle class American you need to be able to spend four million dollars.
Note that many people whose grandparents and parents were "elite" and by that I mean social register types who came over on the mayflower, just can't afford the four million dollar apartment. Think about it these are people who always thought they were elite, in Manhattan (and in Boston) they are eclipsed by the new meritocratic class. and these formerly elite people are angry.
The point is, too many people here seem to want the USA frozen as it was at some point in the past, don't want people who grew up non elite like Bachmann to rise to the top, or perhaps I should clarify it by saying the following, people here are ok with someone being born poor and rising to the top in America if and only if that person born poor is EXACTLY LIKE THEM. People like to see people exactly like them rise from the bottom to the top. But should someone DIFFERENT than them go from poor to super elite in one generation, there is all kinds of suspicion brought to bear here.
The key concept is 'level-headed'. CBT is basically changing a person's internal beliefs that triggered various mental illness such as social-anxiety, depression, narcissism, etc. It is re-wiring the neural pathways so you are a normal functioning person, and is an excellant therapy for a variety of mental illnesses.
The problem I am having is that it worked a little too well on me and I no longer give a damn about stuff I should really give a damn about. Exams, assignments, and tests just don't stress me that much anymore and consequently I don't really care much to study for them. That is a bad thing.
Presidential health is a fascinating topic. The general rule is that serious medical conditions are usually concealed from the American public. For example, Lincoln was severely depressed during much of his presidency, perhaps not surprising considering what was going on at the time. Grant was an alcoholic who made little effort to control his corrupt appointees. Wilson was hypertensive and may have suffered a stroke at the age of 39. He was almost totally incapacitated by a severe stroke about sixteen months before he left office. FDR suffered from severe hypertensive heart disease and was unable to walk across the room by the end of his third term. Kennedy, of course, had adrenal insufficiency and required lots of drugs to keep him going. Naturally, virtually none of this information was shared with American public at the time.
Didn't the liberal God FDR have some sort of ailment? I think he did, but it probably wasn't something a debilitating as severe headaches.
What percentage of the American public even knows that Obama smokes? The press never mentions it, though he has the voice of a smoker.
I'd really like to hear about the effects of the therapy Obama undertook to treat his ingrained anti-white resentment that lead him to make such comments as calling his grandmother a "typical white person."
Why don't they release this stuff? It's the president, after all.
"it really disturbs me that he keeps so much hidden that other (potential) candidates don't have a problem sharing. "
It really disturbs me that more people haven't read Steve's book about Obama. It's highly illuminating, based on information that's out there for anyone to find, and Steve is reasonable, rather than partisan, in tone.
Over the months I have become a Bachmann fan, and I hope she gets the GOP nomination so I don't have to feel like an asshole voting Republican (like I did, voting for John McCaine in '08, and would, voting for Romney in '12), and it will be a delight to have a candidate win who will make the blacks and gays loudly soil their drawers.
To see how our country ended up with a Cloward-Piven economic policy, just look at any organization, city, or school district run by blacks. Why is everybody so suprised? Who can't see the obvious solution? Keep blacks and Hispanics far away from other people's money. Too bad more white voters didn't listen to Joe the Plumber -- maybe they'd be employed, now.
I thought I heard Bob Murphy reference CBT, but rechecking his post I see it was instead Applied Behavior Analysis. Makes sense since he was talking about his son's autism rather than depression.
What was the phrase from CBT?
The question in all of these matters is, for whom is it important?
In a McCain-Obama re-match, if it were revealed that McCain now has early signs of Alzheimers, I would still vote for him over Obama. In short, there is no way I would vote for Obama under any circumstances. In the extremity, I would avoid voting altogether.
I think that most people actually have this much partisan feeling. Maybe a few people actually vote for the candidate qua person rather than the candidate qua ideological sink, but there can't be too many.
"I have no idea if Obama tried CBT, but, if he did, who better a spokesman for how it can change your life than the President?"
Right. Like the way he was so helpfully open about his attempts to quit smoking. He was far more open about how his elderly grandmother was fearful of being harassed by an aggressive black panhandler. [Emphasis in the original.]
"But all that sort of thing is off-limits, because he's Obama."
No, all that sort of thing is off-limits because it can't be made part of his race-mongering agenda. And because working to improve your outlook is a SWPL thing. It doesn't directly involve a government hand-out or redistributing the wealth.
O.T.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=K7q3bWEvl7o
The Obama Admin's Dept of Homeland Security thinks White Males are the #1 terrorist threat....
Well now, didn't Theodore Flicker make a wonderful movie about this very subject that screams for an Obama remake?
"The President's Analyst" (1967)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062153/
"Or at least Bill Ayers knew enough about CBT to have included it in the pseudo-auto-biography."
In a nutshell, there's one book on CBT that gets "prescribed" by the doctor. You go buy it from the Self-help section of any bookstore. Read it and apply it. A lot of it is common sense and gives you practice responding in a more adaptive manner. It seems silly at first until you realize it really does help to reconceptualize some of your typical ways of guessing what another person is thinking or predicting outcomes to an event.
You guys are gonna have to look for a history of electroshock therapy if you want to make O look CRAZY. It'd be much more fun, btw, if you'd find some sexual fetish or other strange proclivity. Keep digging.
Unless it's been purged by Youtube, "The President's Analyst" has been posted there in multiple parts, for viewing by people who can afford DSL/Broadband.
"For example, one of my readers pointed out to me a few years ago that Obama's account..."
Your readers sound unbelievably wise. :o)
When I dropped Steve a line about CBT, I can't remember if I also mentioned Obama's creepy tendency to use NLP "jedi mind tricks" in his speeches. I see the tinfoil hatters also picked this up.
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message649781/pg1
You guys are gonna have to look for a history of electroshock therapy if you want to make O look CRAZY.
It's true that the bar for making a black Democratic President look "crazy" is a lot higher than that for doing the same to a white female Republican. In the minds of liberals, being a female (or, God forbid, black!) Republican is sufficient evidence of insanity all by itself.
Black Death:
Don't forget Jimmy Carter's hemorrhoids!
OT
http://tinyurl.com/3vdjchq
New Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel won't send his kids to Chicago Public high school....loses cool when asked about it.
"In short, there is no way I would vote for Obama under any circumstances. In the extremity, I would avoid voting altogether."
But McCain isn't the solution to America's problem of too much immigration and too much government control. We need a Tea Party majority in both legislative and executive branches to repeal most laws on the books and fire two thirds of federal workers. Right now, and come what may.
Black Death,
At the risk of sounding snarky: FDR last walked across a room in 1921, 13 years before he became President. That's when he contracted polio (or some type of paralytic disease) at his retreat at Campobello (as in the tearjerker movie "Sunrise at Campobello"). This, of course was hidden from the public as much as possible.
He was also a heavy smoker and drinker, which accounts for his lousy cardiac condition, which was also a big State Secret till he finally croaked.
A brief history of psychiatry & depression:
Svetlana: I'm depressed.
Babushka: Think happy thoughts!
Babushka: Pretend you are happy!
Babushka: Get up out of bed!
Babushka: Get off your lazy ass!
Babushka: Make yourself busy!
Babushka: Talk to friends and family!
Psychiatrist: Evil Babushka!
Psychiatrist: Svetlana is sick!
Psychiatrist: You are blaming the victim!
Psychiatrist: Eat pills, Svetlana.
Psychiatrist: Professor told me.
Psychiatrist: And don't talk to Babushka.
30 years pass
Psychiatrist:
Patient Svetlana still sick.
Professor:
Have new therapies!
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
And Behavioral Activation(BA).
Work better than useless pills!
Psychiatrist:
Ooooh. How work?
Professor:
CBT is a form of talk-therapy. Help patients overcome pessimistic outlook on life. Help patients avoid overgeneralizing negative events.
Psychiatrist:
You mean, tell them think happy thoughts?
Professor:
NO! Help patients overcome pessimistic outlook on life.
Psychiatrist:
You mean, tell them think happy thoughts?
Professor: Yes.
Professor:
BA works from outside in. scheduling activities and using graded task assignments!
Psychiatrist:
You mean tell them get off lazy ass and do something?
Professor:
No, I mean scheduling activities and using graded task assignments.
Psychiatrist:
You mean tell them get off lazy ass and do something?
Professor: Yes.
Just because Tom Cruise is an insane, scientologist dwarf doesn't mean he's wrong about everything.
"He was also a heavy smoker and drinker, which accounts for his lousy cardiac condition, which was also a big State Secret till he finally croaked."
A book came out a year or to ago arguing that FDR actually died of melanoma.
http://www.slate.com/id/2236504/pagenum/all/#p2
"Psychiatrist:
You mean tell them get off lazy ass and do something?
Professor: Yes."
Curious as to why your PhDs speak like cave people...
Anyway, you forgot the suicidal patient after discovering that the $6 book on CBT was worth its weight in gold yet they have spent $100+ per week for a year or more on therapy sessions with some shyster.
I don't know why leftists go ballistic over Bachmann, Allen West or Glenn Beck. None of these people are race realists (or nationalists), traditional conservatives nor far-right wingers. Most of them are mainstream center-"right", libertarians, supporters of the Tea Party, classical liberals, capitalists or
------
They trying to nip that shizzle in the bud!
This is a hit piece from the Daily Caller and it's also being pushed by GOP minion NeoCon talk radio hosts. Chris Wallace was among the first commentator on a supposedly conservative cable channel to start with the attacks, and I'd expect more and more on Bachmann from mainstream conservatives until she is successfully marginalized and loses most of her support. The Establishment guys want Rick Perry (GW Bush part II), not someone that actually took the Tea Party folks seriously.
Beowolf,
I've heard that, too. Who knows why he died. But the press never mentioned his ill health, although it must have been obvious to the ink-stained wretches.
Same with JFK. Only now have we some idea of what a semi-invalid was Mr. "Vim and Vigor."
And now, no questions about Obama's medical profile from the successors of Walter Duranty and the rest of the left-wing MSM. But let Bachmann get a migraine,and ... stop the presses!
Bachmann is hot for 55. Her husband seems to be a little light in the loafers. That situation needs to be investigated some more. She's gotta have some guy on the side and so does he.
Well give the Washington Post this, at least this story has more merit than the rape fantasies featured on other media outlets.
Anonymous said...
Curious as to why your PhDs speak like cave people...
I had trouble making the dialogue fit properly and legibly. Cutting out words helped. Then I found it somewhat amusing.
Anyway, you forgot the suicidal patient after discovering that the $6 book on CBT was worth its weight in gold yet they have spent $100+ per week for a year or more on therapy sessions with some shyster.
Would $0 Babushka have been worth her weight in gold? She would have actually hung around Svetlana and *made* her get out of bed and would have constantly *reminded* her to think happy thoughts. Even better than the $6 book, I'd guess.
Notice I am not claiming that depressed people don't have real problems. I am only attacking the shysters you mention.
Apparently BHO was a very very heavy toker throughout high school in Hawaii There is a very high correlation between heavy tokers and a history of noteworthy psychiatric intercession, often enough developing after reefer use has ceased. I would bet heavily that his mother, Stanley (Stanlee) Ann, had an extensive history of use of prescribed anti-depressants and tranqilizers. His putative father, Barack O'bama, Sr., had florid psychopathic symptoms and was a chronic alcoholic and a rake. When a guy has his own genetic dice throw as badly loaded as was the President's , a one page summary of health has resonance indeed. As for Steve Sailer's informed speculation as to whether the President from way back has been "handled" and "ushered" into his present role---there's a lot known about the President that would be congruent with such a possibility.
"Bachmann is hot for 55. "
I was gonna ask Whiskey who's sexier, Michelle Bachmann or Sarah Palin, but he doesn't seem to be around today.
"Would $0 Babushka have been worth her weight in gold?"
You put way too much faith in the older generation. Often they lace advice with a heavy dose of abusiveness or shame that demotivates the person who's already discouraged or confused about what to do.
What you should be doing is another issue. I remember as a young girl that some old woman was waxing quixotic that I could travel the world or work at the UN or something because I was in freshman Spanish. A teaching certificate or some such was much more in order.
Glad to know the older members of your family actual give advice worth taking. The rest of us don't necessarily have a wise babushka to rely on. Best to get a handful of those self-help books when you're running out of ideas. Some of those writers actually know stuff.
"Yeah, she's been getting the Palin treatment since the first debate. Are there other candidates? I haven't heard of them, but I read something unflattering about Bachmann twice a day...
"
Of course you are. The mainstream media is owned by a very, very few--the number I usually encounter in my research is about 6-- and still has skinny ol' B.O. firmly and protectively, under their collective arm.
I was no Palin fan, but the way they went after her was, well, educational. The hired blog-nuts with incredibly nasty comments about her 7 yr old and her retarded (sorry--I know it's not the PC term, but I don't know what that is) youngest, were just too nasty to be totally true. Or maybe "liberals" are just like that.
"Personally feel she would do best curing her condition instead of masking symptoms with drugs. But that is just my opinion."
Migraines usually have a dietary solution, although heavy metal poisoning can also be a cause, especially if you have mercury fillings, which dentists found to be unhealthful as early as 1830 and yet they are still with us, at least in the U.S.
There's only one company I know of that tests for inorganic mercury poisoning, Quicksilver Scientific in Colorado. This metal-poisoning test is not covered by insurance, although the usual mercury tests are.
But I guess she has access to all the best health advice.
Imagine if Obama had suffered debilitating migraines at key points in his presidency.
That's what I was thinking. Can't we find a president with a non-stop migraine? Or maybe we should elect someone in a coma. That would be the perfect president.
Anon, nice link. There's a lot to comment on there, but this one really set off my insanometer:
Just asking this question betrays a lack of understanding of the American political scene. The Republican party today is the party of default on our national debt, the party that won't address global warming
Never mind the fact that 2 weeks ago Obomba was threatening to veto any short-term debt ceiling hike. Saying "don' tess me" or some such silliness. Global...#!@*ing warming? Seriously? What kind of loony is talking or thinking about Global God#!($ Mother#*!%^* Warming right now?
"I was no Palin fan, but the way they went after her was, well, educational."
Ditto. I didn't like her from the first (still don't) because she's not conservative. But the attacks on her and her family were vile. If corresponding attacks had been made on the Obamas, they'd have been trumpeted as "hate speech".
Migranes are a deal-breaker. You can't do anything if you have a bad one, except pray that you will die. The strongest man is incapacitated for a day or two. It isn't like being a cripple (FDR) or a dry drunk (W). One can ignore those conditions, and fully function with a smile.
The interesting question is: why is Bachmann pursuing the high-pressure, highly responsible job of POTUS, knowing she has this condition? Dangerous ego?
(PS: Migranes are not a mere "headache," like delicate femmes get when they don't want to dress for tea. They are Hell on earth, close to pancreatic cancer pain or having a limb shot off in battle.)
Fortunately, a fair few migraine sufferers (perhaps an actual majority) can benefit from certain medications. Sandomigran, which is one such medication, was almost incredibly helpful for me.
I used to get migraines a lot, but after being put on Sandomigran (alias pizotyline, alias Pizotifen) for a week or so, the migraine problem went away and never came back. Some people have unpleasant side-effects from Sandomigran, but I didn't.
Or maybe we should elect someone in a coma.
We did. Didn't stop him from periodically waking from his coma to talk about "strong family values" not stopping at the Rio Grande.
She gives ME a headache!
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