Punditchick: Psychohistory in the Making

Bush is making the Left crazy. You need look no further than public television's paranoid and partisan look at Rove and the recent Kill Bush stamp to see that Bush has made the entire Left mad.

The great thing about the Left's hatred of Bush is that we have a lot to look forward to-- not least of all will be the feeding frenzy by psychohistorians on the Bush presidency.

One thing's for sure, today's psychohistorians will really have to apply themselves if they hope to be as monstrously cruel to Bush as Frank DeHart and David Abrahamsen were to Dick Nixon.

From David Greenberg's book Nixon's Shadow--

"The most fertile source of speculation was a letter Nixon wrote as part of a school assignment at age ten. In the note, Nixon described an adventure he fantasized he had when 'his master' was away. 'It is a tale,' according to James Barber, 'of hurt, panic, and depression'":

My Dear Master:

The two boys that you left me with are very bad to me. Their dog, Jim, is very old and he will never talk or play with me.

One Saturday the boys went hunting. Jim and myself went with them. While going through the woods one of the boys triped [sic] and fell on me. I lost my temper and bit him. He kiked [sic] me in the side and we started on. While we were walking I saw a black round thing in a tree. I hit it with my paw. A swarm of black thing came out of it. I started to run and as both of my eyes swelled shut I fell into a pond. When I got home I was very sore. I wish you would come home right now.

Your good dog,

Richard

"Reprinting the note for the first time in his biography The Real Nixon (1960), the journalist Bela Kornitzer predicted, "Psychiatristswill undoubtedly have a field day." Indeed they did; practically every one of Nixon's psychobiographers meditated upon the letter. One book, Frank DeHart's self published Traumatic Nixon (1979) - either an example of psychobiography at its worst or an ingenious, unappreciated parody of the genre- went so far as to interpret Nixon's whole life through a peculiar reading of the letter, suggesting that Nixon had been forced to perform fellatio on a tramp he encountered in the woods. Michael Rogin and John Lottier suggested in a more orthodox take (Huh?--PC), that "the imagery is anal; feces retaliate for the attack on a tree trunk's anus." David Abrahamsen, for his part took the letter as an indication of Nixon's "oral fixation"- his tendency to respond to adversity by lashing out orally (by biting)- and his vulnerability, self-pity and longing for his mother's comforts."

I actually think DeHart didn't go far enough. Clearly, Nixon's use of the phrase "he kiked me" has psychohistorical implications. Could it be that the tramp that forced young Dick to give him head was Whittier's lone jew? Wouldn't that explain Nixon's antisemitism? What's not to love about psychohistory?

I can't wait to hear how an Andover groundskeeper-- who looked like a member of the Tikriti clan but was most likely a Mexican-- forced young Dubya to give him a hand job and how that fateful incident explains Bush's Iraq policy and his opposition to gay marriage.If DeHart hasn't left the building, I'm sure he could make the case that Bush's open border policy proves, despite his butch pose, that he really wants to be taken from behind.

Bring it on, bring it on....

Comments

i can only assume you've abandoned your voice in disgrace. I would have to as well had i been supporting this President. Rockets...mortars...missing...but you are leaving...so we win... YES!!!

Posted by: rock city | August 13, 2005 at 12:58 AM