Dr. Phil and Me, by Dennis O’Neil
After two 30 minute office visits and a little homework, we listened to the therapist tell us, matter-of-factly and unequivocally, that our relationship was somewhere south of hopeless, we had nothing for each other, the sooner we went back to being merely colleagues, the better for all concerned. I wasn’t surprised, and I don’t think she was either. But I guess I didn’t expect the final pronouncement to come so quickly and definitively.
The therapist was the late Dr. Albert Ellis, developer of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, and boy! he didn’t believe in mincing words, nor, I’d say, in ignoring he obvious. I remembered him and this pretty inconsequential bit of autobiography when I was paging through a Book of the Month Club mailing the other day and found that BOMC was offering Real Life, by the gent who bylines himself Dr. Phil McGraw.
Soon after I stopped spending my weekdays in a Manhattan office building and became a lazy slug who could, and sometimes did, watch television at three in the afternoon, I sampled Dr. Phil’s daily offering on Channel 2 and was mildly impressed. Like Ellis, he seemed to be interested in solutions, said what he meant. And although “common sense” is overrated – common sense tells us that the world is flat – it does have its uses and Dr. Phil seemed to be using it well. The approaches of both McGraw, as exhibited in those early broadcasts, and Ellis remind me of Morita therapy, a Japanese treatment championed in this country by David Reynolds. Morita therapy says – my interpretation – that, look, we could talk for years and maybe never find out what damaged you, or when, and if we did, we might not be able to do a repair job. But we can deal with the ways the damage is making your life unmanageable, so let’s do that.
Then, during one fine broadcast, Dr. Phil casually mentioned that he’d spoken on the phone to George W. Bush. Okay, presidents call celebrities and most celebrities would take a president’s call and a lousy telephone exchange doesn’t necessarily mean anything and…Then – Dr. Phil and his wife Robin were photographed with George and the missus at some White House shindig, very festively, having, y’know, a good time, and I bid my interest in watching the Dr. Phil show goodbye.
It was, and is, my belief that GWB is the worst president ever, and that he is willfully ignorant and arrogant and that he is a psychological train wreck. Any psychologist who allows himself to be photographed with such a man is implicitly endorsing him and if McGraw is endorsing Bush, he either does not recognize the train wreck, in which case his professional acuity is questionable, or he approves of Bush’s policies, in which case his grasp on reality is at shaky, or he’ll do anything to get his face on the news, in which case…well, maybe he should see a good therapist.
RECOMMENDED READING: Playing Ball on Running Water, by David Reynolds.
Glad you're off Phil (GIGO). Sorry it took Bush Two to do it.Be careful though, I think my mom precipitously dropped Frank Sinatra over something similar.
I agree with your assessment of the Bush Presidency. He is the worst President in modern History. I don't know enough about American History, like the "Teapot Dome Scandal," to compare Bush to earlier Presidents. Certainly the massive ethnic cleansing that was done against Native Americans ought to go down as a black mark on SOME President's record and put them in the running for "Worst," maybe Andrew Jackson.But there is no question that this President has been on vacation more than any other. He made little effort to actually guide the country through difficult times. I lay the current financial crisis squarely at the feet of Bush and the Republican Congress. For six years they gave a mutual rubber stamp to any and all excesses in spending, war profiteering, lax regulation, thoughtless deregulation, TORTURE, attacks on civil liberties and insane the budget deficits and record National Debt. It's takes hard work for a President to seem MORE criminal than Nixon. More Tricky than Dick. An even bigger Dick! President Bush is the perfect storm of criminal negligence, arrogance, stupidity, criminal culpability and incompetence. I think this administration would have screwed Our Nation less IF they had TRIED, that is how incompetent they are in my eyes.It's telling that the Republican President, the Republican Presidential Nominee and the Republican House Minority leader couldn't lead more than 33% or their own party to vote for a bipartisan bill that all of them claimed was essential to the vitality of the World Economy. Where is the LEADERSHIP from the Republicans? Where is the Republican Leadership on a day when the Dow loses the most points in HISTORY?OK. Bush is a dip-shit. A Grade-A dithering nimrod. At this point Bush and McCain are not even capable of leading paid members of his own party. Not ONE Arizona Congressman (McCain's home state) was willing to follow McCain's leadership on the Economic Rescue Bill.The Republicans looked for an excuse to SHUT DOWN their National Convention, rather than be put in the same position as Dr. Phil (photographed standing next to Bush). Bush stinks, and obviously from this article, you think the stink is contagious.That said, Bush still occupies the Office of the President. He is still the Figurehead of the United States. For Better or Worse, for Richer or for Poorer, we as a Nation said "I Do," TWICE! We have nobody to blame for Bush but ourselves (especially for re-electing the boob). But We need to respect the Office of the President. We need to respect the Democracy that put him in power. In that regard, I think it would be not only rude, but unpatriotic to ignore a phone call or invitation from the President. IF the President called me on the phone, I would answer. If the President asked me to come the White House and pose for a picture, I would accept the invitation. I would even grit my teeth and smile. It would be rude to do otherwise.I don't like Dr. Phil. But his choice of accepting an invitation from the Office of the President won't be my reason for disliking him. I also think that it would be unconscionable, rude and unpatriotic for the American People to put someone who agreed with even 90% of Bush's policies over the last eight years back in the Oval Office. Our Country is in desperate need of a true Leader, somebody who can restore respect, trust and confidence back to the Office of the President. We desperately need change. I don't think we can get that from a pseudo-maverick, frankly a leadership-gelding, like John McCain.It's our Patriotic Duty as Americans to VOTE. It's our job as citizens to put in place the kind of leaders we think we deserve. In a Democracy we get what we deserve. And I believe we deserve more than the erratic, knee-jerk (and rubber stamped) judgment of John McCain. I believe we deserve more than Bush-Lite.It is my Prayer that (this time) Americans can recognize Leadership when they see it. I believe that we are being offered the chance to vote for a True Leader. I HOPE for CHANGE. I'm voting for Obama.
Russ,I often use that exact line about Bush being the 'worst president in modersn history', too.DUMBEST president in modern history is the other phrase I use in connection Georgie.
As a Michigan resident, even dumber than Gerald Ford is a line I like to use. It will either elicit laughs or dirty looks, depending on which of my friends I'm talking to.
Dan – As a former Michigan resident I agree.
By a strange coincidence, my boss just had me order a number of books for him from the Albert Ellis institute…I think the current administration, and perhaps modern Republicans in general, embody lots of interesting psychological phenomena, with the most commented on perhaps being projection. They also engage in a lot of wishful thinking, trying to make reality conform to their theoretical ideas; they've had eight years — some would say almost 30 years, given that the relatively conservative Democrat Clinton (faced with a strong Republican Congress for most of his tenure) didn't really interrupt the market-uber-alles mentality and gross redistribution of wealth from the lower classes to the top which kicked in with Reagan's election — to carry out their theories, which have all failed utterly. Isn't that the clinical definition of insanity, trying the same thing over and over expecting different (i.e., favorable to your ideology) results?
Much of the public's reaction to the current financial crisis, I believe, comes not from a lack of confidence in the economy but a lack of confidence in the Administration. We listen to what's being said by Bush and his people, and we simply do not know what to believe. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice…McCain's flipping around like a fish out on the deck doesn't help, either.
I never cared much for Dr Phil – though i didn't have the complete Aversion to him that i instantly manifested to the Wicked Witch (the world's best-known holder of a PhD in nutrition), i definitely went Right Off him after the Britney Spears thing…
If Only.If only our beloved President Bill Clinton had been allowed to win a 3rd and 4th term, we never would be in this mess.- 9/11 would have never happened, as al Qaeda was certainly so impressed with Bill's enlightened leadership of the free world that they were tranquil throughout the 1990s.- Saddam would still be in place, preparing to hand power over to his pair of whack-job sons, establishing his dynasty for years to come. Untold civilians would still be dying from the sanctions, while the oil-for-food program enriched the ruling elite both inside and outside Iraq. But no American boys or girls would have had to die there, and of course that's all that really matters.- The Clinton team would have made sure the New Orleans levees were fortified in plenty of time before Katrina struck. I'm sure that was next on their to-do list before they ran out of time in 2000.- Bill would have had the foresight to tighten up restrictions on sub-prime lending, reversing decades of policy favoring expanded home ownership. Certainly, poor folks need to be renters, not owners, right?- The smart guys at the Clinton Treasury department would have put the kibosh on the risky practice of inventing new securities instruments based on sub-prime mortgages. After all, Robert Rubin came from (and returned to) Goldman Sachs, and that blue chip investment bank (oops) has certainly been immune to all these Wall Street woes.So, I'm leaning towards voting for Obama (mission accomplished, Denny!) for the simple reason that maybe it'll finally stop the whining about how everything has gone to hell because of the man who happens to sit at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. It is past time for the other team in American politics to put up or shut up.
9/11 would have never happened, as al Qaeda was certainly so impressed with Bill's enlightened leadership of the free world that they were tranquil throughout the 1990s.You're probably right, though not for the reason you mention – because Clinton's Administration actually knew that such things might happen, unlike the next (Mis)Administration, which had all of the Intelligence material that had been available to Clinton's and still got caught completely by surprise, and lied (as usual) when they said no-one had even conceived of the idea that such a thing could happen?Saddam would still be in place, preparing to hand power over to his pair of whack-job sons, establishing his dynasty for years to come. Untold civilians would still be dying from the sanctions, while the oil-for-food program enriched the ruling elite both inside and outside Iraq. But no American boys or girls would have had to die there, and of course that's all that really matters.By this time, we've made such a mess of Iraq that, in the long run, we're going to be responsible for more deaths than Saddam and we've pretty much destroyed what came closer to a First World economy than most others in the region and destroyed major cultural treasures that can never be replaced and, among other things, killed thirty-eight American soldiers because Cheney's buddies who got the sweetheart no-bid contracts can't be bothered to properly wired the crappy shhoddy barracks they built.But by god, we've proved that the Bush family have bigger dicks than Saddam! Even if we had to lie and distort the facts to start a war that had nothing at all to do with the pretext used to start it.Remind me – how long has it been since "Mission Accomplished"?Bill would have had the foresight to tighten up restrictions on sub-prime lending, reversing decades of policy favoring expanded home ownership. Certainly, poor folks need to be renters, not owners, right?There would have been no need to tighten such restrictione, because they never would have been loosened. It takes a epublican Administration to crawl up Big Business's butt and give it whatever it thinks it wants.So, I'm leaning towards voting for Obama (mission accomplished, Denny!) for the simple reason that maybe it'll finally stop the whining about how everything has gone to hell because of the man who happens to sit at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. It is past time for the other team in American politics to put up or shut up.You mean the "tax-and-spend" party that finishes its time in office leaving the budget breaking even or even with a surplus for the "fiscally conservative" other party to come in and run up another record deficit, as every Republican since Nixon has done?
Well said, Mike.Slipping over to the bailout bill for a second, watching The Daily Show last night and seeing the clips of House Republicans claim that they voted against the bill because that mean ol' Nancy Pelosi hurt their widdle feelings with the nasty things she said in her speech before the vote, I found myself thinking that all their constituents should descend en masse on Washington and bitch-slap them until they all have permanent tinnitus. This was presented as something essential to prevent the complete collapse of our economy, and while there were reasons to vote against it ("nonreviewable" actions by the secretary, lack of sanctions against executives whose actions brought us to this point), for grown men to stand before the public and say they voted against it because they were upset about a speech is jaw-droppingly immature.
Speaking of Dr Phil and politics: http://www.gocomics.com/comic_page/index/1854(If you don't read "Barkeater Lake", don't even try to figure out what's going on – it's the last panel that's important…)