Sunday, April 20, 2008

The GOP and Infantilism

Regular readers know that I occasionally like to engage in dime-store psychology. When you are writing about corrupt Republicans, it's hard not to turn to various forms of emotional pathology.

My current theory is that many corrupt GOPers are afflicted with some form of infantilism.

The latest evidence comes from perhaps the most corrupt GOPer of them all, former White House advisor Karl Rove. Is false bravado a sign of infantilism? I would say yes.

And you will recall that after former Don Siegelman appeared on Dan Abrams' The Verdict, the former Alabama governor challenged Rove to testify before Congress about Siegelman's prosecution.

Rove's initial reaction? Oh sure, no problem. Rove's current reaction? You can read about it here.
Seems Turd Blossom isn't so brave after all. Oh, he's brave enough to write Abrams a letter and chastise him for not asking Siegelman certain questions. But is Rove brave enough to go on Abrams show and answer questions, as Siegelman had done? Not exactly.

If you think about it, Rove kind of looks like a pudgy, doughy baby--the ugliest baby I've ever seen, but a baby nonetheless.

Other signs of infantilism? How about hiding behind someone's skirt when you're in the process of being found out?

Good grief, the Bushies are experts at this. It's what their "executive privilege" claim is all about. And closer to home, our Legal Schnauzer case is filled with examples of "hiding behind the skirt." Corrupt Shelby County attorney Bill Swatek is a master at it. He calls out the county clerk and the sheriff's department to do his dirty work for him. He let's corrupt judges protect him from facing the consequences of his own unlawful actions. In short, Swatek acts like a baby--a puss might be another apt word.

If "childishness" is another word for infantilism, what other examples do we see from the modern GOP?

What do children try to do to someone they don't like or feel threatened by? They try to get a group together to gang up on that person. That's precisely what the GOP has done to Don Siegelman. They couldn't beat him fair and square, so they ganged up on him. Same with Paul Minor in Mississippi. Their corporate cronies couldn't beat Minor in a court of law, so they ganged up on him.

What do children do with language? They mangle it, mostly. They aren't capable of making serious arguments. I've seen this trait firsthand from modern conservatives. Since I started Legal Schnauzer last June, I can't remember receiving a single comment or e-mail in which a GOP partisan makes an intelligent argument or point about something I've written. Invariably, the partisan comments are of the "you are f *****g moron" variety.

How ironic is it that Mobile Press-Register reporter Eddie Curran is credited with "breaking" the Siegelman story? Curran is a veritable poster child for infantilism.

When Curran used the Montgomery Independent as a forum for a two-part attack piece on Jill Simpson and Scott Horton, we tore Curran's work to shreds here and here.

When Curran attacked 60 Minutes and tried to get the right-wing blogosphere riled up about it, we again left his work in tatters. And it was easy to do. The man appears to be incapable of taking facts, language, and logic and putting them together in a coherent style. And remember, these "works" were Curran unfiltered, without an editor to clean up his miss.

In short, Curran writes and thinks like a child. Don't believe me?

Check out his comments on a few of my early posts. You can read them here and here.

Does that sound like the work of a well-adjusted, adult mind? I didn't think so.

And since I took apart Curran's attacks on Simpson, Horton, and 60 Minutes, I've received a steady diet of vile, profane, threatening e-mails, some of which have indicated a willingness to commit crimes against me.

All of these have been sent anonymously. Wonder who they came from?

They won't say. Childish, indeed.

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