celebrity psychology

1) pro•jec•tion |prō'jek SH ən|
a psychological defense mechanism where a person unconsciously denies his or her own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, such as to other people. Thus, projection involves imagining or projecting the belief that others have those feelings.

2) ex•ag•ger•a•tion |ig'zajərā SH ən|
the grandiose sense of self-importance observed in narcissists also uses exaggeration to thwart any recognition of fallibility ...

3) vic•tim•i•za•tion |viktəmə'zā SH ən|
a way of dealing with the cognitive dissonance that results from inconsistencies between the way they treat others and what they believe about themselves; a way of escaping harsh judgment or condemnation they may fear from others.

the (com)passion of the donald?

"when it comes to racism and racists i am the least racist person there is. and i think most people that know me would tell you that. i am the least racist. i've had great relationships. in fact, randal pinkett won on the apprentice a little while ago, a couple years ago, and randal's been outstanding in every way. so i mean i am the least racist person. but [van jones] is a guy trying to get some publicity for himself by attacking donald trump. but that's OK 'cause a lotta people do that."

coda

for as long and as often as we've heard ordinary folks dismiss political operators with a disgusted "a pox on both their houses!", it is still very easy to separate the democrats from the republicans, just by listening to their apologies. can you tell which is which?

1) tom vilsack:

... i started off by extending to her my personal and profound apologies for — for the pain and discomfort that has been caused to her and to her family over the course of the last several days. ... and then i asked if she would be interested in figuring out a way forward that would take advantage of the extraordinary life experiences that she's had ...

2) andrew breitbart:

[ ... crickets ... ]

and the winner is ...

it's only wednesday but i feel pretty safe in bestowing this week's "look who's oozed out from under its rock" award and "feces flinger of the week" trophy to disgraced former FEMA head michael "heckuvajob" brown for his transparently self-serving efforts to wipe the stink of katrina onto obama:

brown:	and i think the delay was this: it's pure politics. this president has never supported big oil. he's never supported offshore drilling. and now he has an excuse to shut it back down. you've already heard bill nelson, senator from florida, saying offshore drilling is DOA. they played politics with this crisis and left the coast guard out there doing what they're supposed to do.
cavuto:	so michael, you don't take him at face value when he says a temporary halt in offshore drilling is just that — a temporary halt.
brown:	no, no. look bill nelson — and you know, they don't say these things without it being coordinated — and so now you're looking at this oil slick approaching the louisiana shore, according to certain NOAA and other places, if the winds are right it'll go up the east coast. this is exactly what they want. because now he can pander to the environmentalists and say, 'i'm going to shut it down because it's too dangerous.' while mexico and china and everybody else drills in the gulf, we're going to get shut down.

brown:	hey, hey, chris, i think there's two things. i think, one, we're seeing the rahm emanuel rule number one, ah, taking effect. and that is, "let no crisis go unused". so, this is an opportunity for a president who wants to bankrupt the coal industry and basically get rid of the oil and gas industry to shut down offshore drilling in the gulf of mexico.
	[snip]
matthews:	why would somebody sabotage something that would cause this kind of damage to our planet, really?
brown:	oh well, because i think there are terrorists in the world who would like to do that sort of thing. terrorists don't give a rat's butt about the ecology or anything else. all they care about is hurting america.
	[snip]
matthews:	... but he just came out for offshore oil drilling.
brown:	oh, chris, ah, i'm glad you asked that. he came out and said, look, i'm going to approve oil and gas drilling. and all you guys went, look what a great guy he is, trying to reach out to everybody else. chris, all he did was he approved two existing leases on the northeast coast, and shut down all the other proposed leases on the west coast and the southeast coast. there was nothing new in what he did.
matthews:	but don't you know what you're saying to a third party, not somebody like myself or somebody like yourself, listening to you, thinks that you're sounding insane. you're saying that the president of the united states went into slow-mo here, somehow — or for somehow seemed to be working faster than he really was, but was really quite slow to get there, because he saw an opportunity to exploit a disaster so that he could reap discredit on to the coal industry. and by the way, a couple of weeks ago —
brown:	no, no, no, not just the coal ...
matthews:	— he came down for offshore drilling so that he could discredit it when this thing occurred. are you suggesting he somehow knew this would happen and that's why he came out for offshore drilling?
brown:	no, no ...
matthews:	it sounds like that's what you're saying —
brown:	no, no, chris, hang on ...
matthews:	— and it sounds crazy. crazy!
brown:	well, and the way you just put it, chris, the way you just put it, it sounds crazy to me, too.

the handshake

what josh said:

they got issues we keep the chat shows running through the day at TPM HQ. and i've been listening to a constant stream — mainly but not only on fox — of talk through the day about whether we should feel weak or ashamed or tarnished or any other number of things because president obama had a friendly handshake with huge [sic] chavez of venezuela. the whole idea seems so deeply silly to me that it's hard to know how exactly to even comment on it. but i'm struck once again by the sort of psychologically arrested mentality and extreme emotional insecurity that seems at work in the minds of many foreign policy conservatives — or more specifically, so as not to paint with too broad a brush, those of the neo-conish flavor. sure, a lot of this is just political posturing — trying to sound the story out for possible political vulnerabilities on obama's part. throw a bunch of mud up against the wall and see what sticks. what's striking to me though is that a lot of it seems like a very genuine, gut-level emotional response. (a related example is what matt yglesias pointed out a few days ago — how many right-wingers seem to have convinced themselves that north korea, a borderline failed state on the possible brink of economic collapse somehow has the us over a barrel.) in the course of our normal lives, few of us have much difficulty identifying habits of defensiveness or a penchant for histrionic or petulant interactions as signs of weakness, not strength. really powerful people don't need stunts and usually signal their power by a certain graciousness and indifference in such interactions. they have nothing to prove. but american power, respect, command of public opinion — however you want to define it — must be in these people's minds an extremely brittle thing. they really do seem like extremely insecure people.

comical nonsense a bit of follow about on right-wing paranoia. i'm just watching andrea mitchell interview michael o'hanlon about whether president obama showed some sort of dangerous weakness in happily shaking hands with hugo chavez. mitchell played a clip of the always cartoonish newt gingrich and then noted that conservatives are drawing the analogy to john kennedy's famous meeting with nikita krushchev in the latter sized kennedy up as a lightweight and — so the argument goes — thus believed he could be pushed around during the cuban missile crisis. now, kruschev? really? i'm not sure i can imagine a better illustration of the sort of parodic paranoia i'm talking about. we do realize that the us has the most powerful military in the world and venezuela has little ability to project military power beyond its own borders. it's a non-entity militarily, even compared to iran and north korea. will he be emboldened into calling obama el diablo?

update:

the shocking truth fresh off our earlier national humiliation, we just received a note from TPM reader SR. and SR points out that in the second image of our obama at the summit of the americas slideshow we see president obama shaking hands with the dog of the president of mexico. he even seems a bit to be bowing to the dog.