Sorry for the long post which is about to follow, but the time has come for me to return to the roots of my various political (doubtless infantile) disorders.

A better choice for the title of this post might be "Poli Psy 101" . . . (Ironically, by writing this post, I'm neglecting my search for one of the country's leading political psychologists -- Capitol Hill Blue's "Dr. Stephanie Crossfield"!)

The problem is, psychopolitical "disease" diagnoses are everywhere. A comment by Jon Thompson reminded me of an account I read recently about a doctoral student in psychology whose opinion that she was "not privileged" triggered a demand that she submit to psychological evaluation. She refused, and was expelled:

[Lorraine Land] started working on her doctorate in fall 2002 and had no major problems until October 2004, when she told psychology professor Cheryll Rothery-Jackson about an experience she had with clients of different socioeconomic backgrounds while doing a practicum at Friends Hospital in the Northeast.

"Really, what I said was not harmful," says Land, who has blond hair and wears a bubble-gum-pink outfit complete with a sparkly headband. "I acknowledged as a white woman, I'm sure I've had privileges; that doesn't mean I'm privileged. I'm not a Paris Hilton."

Rothery-Jackson, who is black, did not chastise Land for her remarks, but Land says, "From that point on, she went after me." (Rothery-Jackson did not respond to requests for comment.)

A few weeks later, Land received a letter from the psychology faculty saying she was argumentative, lacked insight and clinical experience and needed to control her tone. Then, the day before Thanksgiving, she received a review noting "serious concerns" in every aspect of her training. She submitted ways to improve, but the school was not satisfied.

During this time, Land says, Rothery-Jackson and another professor, Scott Browning, violated her trust by calling Friends Hospital to ask colleagues how she was progressing.

Finally, on Feb. 25, 2005, Browning told Land, who was already in therapy for anxiety, that she needed to undergo a psychological evaluation. Stress then led Land to request a break from her practicum. Friends Hospital agreed, but the college faculty never approved the change and failed Land in the course.

The school then dismissed her due to the failing grade and her reluctance to undergo an evaluation.

But there really is a growing tendency to label political opponents as mentally defective. It's not especially helpful to me, as I like to know what people think, and I am more concerned with whether they are right or wrong than in the mental processes underlying their thinking. My "rigid toilet training" post attempted to look at this in the context of "authoritarianism":

Dean, who's reinvented himself too many times to count, has now come up with a very popular meme that echoes the conservatism-as-mental-illness idea, but with a new twist -- the word "authoritarian" doesn't distinguish between conservatism and mental illness! It's a Marxist term which conflates the political and the personal into one grand evil.

There's a term called "malignant narcissism" which I also hear from time to time. But anyone who thinks that "malignant narcissism" and "authoritarian" are in any way mutually exclusive should consider the case of North Korea's Kim Jong Il. He's both! I think psychoanalysis may be helpful in dealing with an unstable man like that, but it's of little value in ordinary political discussions, unless the goal is simply to yell and polarize. But the tendency of so many people to do it may indicate that hopeless polarization has set in -- to the point where all discussions are impossible, so ad hominem attacks (often launched by Choir A against Choir B) are the only thing left.

However, it's the "in" thing these days to do "Poli Psy," so I think it's high time that I check myself in for evaluation right here at this blog.

Back in the days when self-appointed political diagnostician John Dean was still a conservative, I was a Marxist in my thinking. Of course, I wasn't much of an authoritarian (my Marxism clashed with my anarchistic tendencies and lifestyle) and I'm still not much of an authoritarian. In fact, politically, every test I've taken shows me to be solidly in the libertarian camp.

People change their political opinions all the time. I've changed my mind countless times over the years. When I was in high school I was not just a Marxist, but a fiery radical. My radicalism didn't last long, as my political philosophy changed during the first couple of years I attended UC Berkeley. It turned me off to see what I perceived as uniformity of thought, and unquestioning acceptance of the virtues of socialism by so many. Many self-proclaimed "Marxists" didn't know the first thing about Marx; I soon learned that the most of the people who really knew Marxist theory were either:

a) opposed to Marxism as a result of studying it and seeing it in practice; or

b) dedicated, true-believing Marxists who could spout Marx almost line and verse.

Members of the Communist Party, while Marxists, tended to keep their Marxism in the closet, because they were told to, and they did as they were told as a matter of party discipline. You had to get close to them to get them to really discuss Marxism, but what I soon learned was that their kind of Marxism was tempered by a constant political realism. Communist Party Marxism was Marxism met up with the political maxim that "politics is the art of the possible." The Communist Party worked very hard, but in the background. The focus was always on issues to which they tried to get as many people as possible to relate.

But the Trots and the Sparts -- they were the Marxists who'd really and unabashedly talk Marxism. And why wouldn't they? Trotskyism, after all, was always a deviation from traditional Communism as it had come to be defined by Soviet theoreticians, and if you think about it, if you want to deviate from something, it's a prerequisite that you first know the "ism" you are deviating from. The Trots knew their stuff, but it was hard carrying on conversations with them, because they were like broken records.

Looking back on this, I'm remembering that my revulsion towards Communism was based on what I perceived as Communist authoritarianism.

By 1976 I had become so disillusioned with the left that I had decided I was a Libertarian. Learning about Cuba from people who'd been there did not endear me to the place. Gay bars which had been joyously cheering the victory of Fidel were closed down as places of bourgeois decadence not long after. Not much to cheer about. In general, Communists struck me as control freaks. People who, the more you got to know them, the more they wanted to tell you what to think. Communism in practice, I realized, was a very controlling deal. The ideology had an answer for everything. All you had to do was look it up, and follow Marxist principles. The Trots were more like fundamentalists in the sense that they could at least look up the text for themselves. But then they'd get into these fractious, tedious arguments, in the most hair-splitting detail. Insufferable. The Communist Party types were even worse, as they took direction from above. It was authoritarianism at its worst. No dissent at all. Party discipline was a prerequisite to any responsibility. If you wanted to join the Communist Party, you'd be given tasks involving utter drudgery (like standing around gathering signatures on some petition), and you'd be watched. Graded, like a child in school. Original thinking? Forget it. That's only for those with years proven to be "politically reliable."

So, I didn't like real Marxists, and I didn't like the idea of Marxism in government. However, I liked the hordes of fake Marxists (political poseurs) even less. None of them seemed free. I liked the idea of simply being left alone, and politically I was more of an anarchist than a Marxist, so Libertarianism (with its emphasis on leaving people alone) had an early and enduring appeal.

Nonconformity doubtless played a role, as I've always tended to rebel against whatever the status quo might be at a given place and time, provided I can identify it. I had long hair until everyone had long hair, then I had short hair (and so forth), and then I was into the early punk scene until that too became conformist, but the process is as silly as it is exhausting, because rebellion leads to conformity, which leads to rebellion. . . So, while I've long since abandoned following these cycles of mindless contrarianism, I still refuse to do something (or, especially, to think something) simply because someone tells me to.

My voting record, I think, reflects my evolution. In 1972 I voted for George McGovern, and in 1976 I voted for Roger McBride. But by 1980, I had come to see Ronald Reagan as a great enough threat that I didn't want to waste my vote by voting for the Libertarian. (More here.)

This is not to say that I liked the socialism I considered part and parcel of Democratic Party politics, mind you. What turned me off to Reagan above all was the "culture war" rhetoric; I thought he was part of a simplistic mindset which regarded long hair and pot smoking and gays as unpatriotic. The fact that he courted people then known as "televangelists" filled me with disgust, and even rage. The mistake that I thought was being made was what today is called "conflation." Generalizing about people by invoking cultural stereotypes (like saying all hippies are leftists when many weren't, or wouldn't have been) is a way of keeping them out of your tent, pleasing your own kind. But it's a cheap shot, and long term, it does damage. Rather than bashing hippies, Reagan should have bashed Marxism -- preferably with a long-haired staffer by his side. But he couldn't do this, because it might have been misunderstood, and he'd have lost votes. The truth is, many members of his generation hated hippies because of their appearance, just like (let's face it) many of them hated gays. Wittingly or unwittingly, I think that Reagan (much to the delight of the left, which obliged by providing stereotypes every step of the way) did much to perpetuate the conflation of the personal and the political.

If only it hadn't happened. But it did.

I think it was Reagan's single greatest mistake.

It's why I'd like to continue to call myself a Goldwater liberal, and also why I am quite irritated that John Dean is not only advancing a Marxist psychopolitical meme (that political enemies are "authoritarians"), but he does so in the name of Barry Goldwater (a man who was himself a victim of these tactics).

I'm not about to buy the Dean book, but if the prologue is any indication, it's a masterpiece of prevarication -- and above all, conflation.

Let me admit my bias here. I do not buy into the conventional history of Watergate.

I did for years, but it never made sense to me why Nixon's people would want to burglarize the DNC or "bug Larry O'Brien's office." (Jim Hougan, btw, was the first to debunk this thoroughly, and he's neither an authoritarian nor a cultist, but someone who thought the CIA was out of control.)

The "bug O'Brien" theory didn't make sense to a lot of people -- least of all Richard Nixon, whose initial reaction that the burglary made no sense was absolutely right. A hard-bitten man (and certainly no moralist about such things), Nixon reacted along the lines of "WTF?"

"(expletive deleted) Of course, I am not dumb and I will never forget when I heard about this (adjective deleted) forced entry and bugging. I thought, what in the hell is this? What is the matter with these people? Are they crazy? I thought they were nuts! A prank! But it wasn't! It wasn't very funny." -- Richard Nixon, February 28, 1973

I realize that I certainly can't solve Watergate in a blog post. Even in a long blog post. The facts are laboriously complicated, but anyone who wants background about my skepticism can read my much-neglected Watergate blog. Again, Jim Hougan (a great writer BTW) was the first to really go back and explore the burglary details in his book Secret Agenda. (I recommend the Hougan book highly, along with Colodny and Gettlin's Silent Coup. People who don't want to buy out of print books can stream Barbara Newman's "The Key to Watergate" which was originally made for A&E's Investigative Reports series.)

Not that I'd expect Glenn Greenwald to actually sit down and ask serious questions about the burglary itself, but his recent endorsement of John Dean's book (in a post titled "John Dean and Authoritarian Cultism") speaks volumes about the diagnostic approach to demonization of people with dissenting (or even skeptical) views.

In 1991, as Dean recounts at length, he learned that 60 Minutes and Time Magazine were preparing to feature a new book, entitled Silent Coup, which claimed that Dean himself was the one who ordered the Watergate break-in. The book alleged that Dean's motive was that his wife, Maureen, had a connection to a Washington, DC call-girl operation and thus had knowledge of various sex scandals involving Democrats, and Dean sought to obtain documentation to use against them.

The very idea that Dean himself had ordered the Watergate break-in because of his wife's connection to a call-girl service, and that these secrets were somehow kept for 20 years, was completely absurd on its face.

(From Reihl World View via Glenn Reynolds.)

Greenwald does not mention that it was Jim Hougan who first discovered the connection to the call girl operation. Nor does he disclose that there are serious historians who also think Hougan, Colodny, and Gettlin were right.

One such historian is Joan Hoff:

Joan Hoff, professor of history at Indiana University and co-editor of the Journal of Women’s History, is a specialist in twentieth-century American foreign policy and politics and in the legal status of American women. She was executive secretary of the Organization of American Historians from 1981 to 1989. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, includig the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians’ Article Prize and the Stuart L. Bernath Prize for the best book on American diplomacy. She is the author of several books including Law, Gender, and Injustice: A Legal History of U.S. Women and Herbert Hoover: Forgotten Progressive.

Nor is it "right wing" -- despite Greenwald & Dean's continued protestations:

And once Dean vehemently denied these allegations, both 60 Minutes and Time investigated the claims and both decided not to run the story -- a noble decision which, in Time's case, led to the loss of the $50,000 it had paid for the rights to run an excerpt of the book.

But using right-wing smear techniques which, back then, were still new, but which are now a staple of the "conservative" movement, these patently false allegations against Dean were aggressively promoted by right-wing ideologues and then accepted and given great attention by the mainstream media.

The book's publishers enlisted both right-wing follower G. Gordon Liddy and by-then-born-again Christian activist Charles Colson -- both of whom still hated Dean for his blasphemy in testifying truthfully against the President -- to promote the book and push its allegations against Dean.

More and more right-wing groups and personalities jumped on board this smear campaign, until it received full-fledged support from mainstream right-wing media personalities. That, in turn, induced many mainstream media programs -- from Good Morning America to CNN's Larry King Live -- to invite the authors on to discuss the book. Out of this now all-too-familiar process, this defamatory book ended up on the New York Times' Best Seller List. As Dean recounts:

Despite most of the news media’s fitting dismissal of Silent Coup’s baseless claims, the protracted litigation provided time for the book to gather a following, including an almost cultlike collection of highprofile right-wingers. Among them, for example, is Monica Crowley, a former aide to Richard Nixon after his presidency, and now a conservative personality on MSNBC, cohosting Connected: Coast to Coast with Ron Reagan. Other prominent media-based conservatives who have joined the glee club are James Rosen and Brit Hume of Fox News. How these seemingly intelligent people embraced this false account mystified me, and I wanted to know. . . .

As for Colson, his reason for promotion of Silent Coup remained a complete mystery for me, as did the motives of people like Monica Crowley, James Rosen, Brit Hume, and all the other hard-core conservatives who embraced this spurious history and made it a best seller. The only thing I could see that these people had in common was their conservatism.

That is how the "conservative" movement works to this day, although its methods have become even more efficient and less scrupulous. Petty allegations and character attacks begin percolating in the smear sewers of the right wing -- through insinuations by talk-radio dirt-mongerers like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, speculation by Matt Drudge, smear campaigns by shadowy groups and organizations, and now by attention-desperate and glory-seeking right-wing blogs. From there, the attacks are reported by the right-wing media and then fed into the mainstream media.

A lynch mob is created which seeks not the truth of what happened, but the destruction of the movement's enemies.

Colson is an authoritarian, and because he agreed with Colodny's theory, then anyone who agrees with Colodny's theory becomes a Colsonite authoritarian!

What sort of "movement" is this to which Watergate skeptics are said to belong? A right wing "authoritarian" movement compiling "enemies lists" as part of a plot to restore the deceased Richard Nixon? I'm tempted to ask just what is an "enemy," because I wonder whether the term is being used fairly, but that would require another essay on another topic. But I'm curious: does Glenn Greenwald have enemies of his own? Or does he think that the word "enemy" is a malevolent term used by people who disagree with him? I don't know. Hell, I don't even know right now whether I'm questioning the authority of Glenn Greenwald or John Dean. (Considering that the latter's disavowal of his famous Blind Ambition, I'd have to conclude -- however reluctantly -- that Glenn Greenwald is a better authority.)

What about the fact that Nixon was a centrist Republican, to the left of Goldwater? Does it matter that he ended the Vietnam War, started the EPA, and instituted wage and price controls? Or has Nixon morphed into a savior of the far right? Hardly. The far right didn't like him then, and they don't like him now.

Interestingly, Colodny (who, btw, writes for notorious right wing rags like Counterpunch) thinks that the call girl connection was part of a CIA coup orchestrated by General Al Haig and other right wingers. Jim Hougan thought so too -- and still thinks so:

In his June 2, 2005 article in the Post, outing his source, Woodward tells us that Felt regarded the Nixon White House as “corrupt…sinister…(a) cabal.” And, as the Post reporter makes clear, this was a view that Felt held prior to the Watergate break-in. Indeed, Woodward says, “Felt thought the Nixon team were Nazis.”

As it happens, this is exactly what I thought at the time, as did nearly every other liberal that I knew. Strange, then, to learn that this same point of view was shared by Mark Felt, a professional Red-hunter so highly placed in the FBI that only the Director, J. Edgar Hoover, outranked him.

Or maybe it’s not so strange.

A similar view of the Nixon Administration was held by James McCord, the rightwing evangelist and former CIA Security chief who led the break-in team at the Watergate. In a series of queer “newsletters” written after he had been arrested, McCord put forward a conspiracy theory suggesting that the Rockefeller family was lunging for control of the government’s critical national security functions, using the Council on Foreign Relations and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger as its means to an end.

At the Pentagon, then-Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, went even further. To Zumwalt, the Nixon Administration was “inimical to the security of the United States.”[1] Indeed, as the admiral later explained, he eventually left the Administration (this was in 1974) because “its own officials and experts reflected Henry Kissinger’s world view: that the dynamics of history are on the side of the Soviet Union; that before long the USSR will be the only superpower on earth and…that the duty of policy-makers, therefore, is at all costs to conceal from the people their probable fate…” [2]

Egad... they’ve sold us out!

And while I still refuse to call it "projection," I hardly think it constitutes mental illness -- especially of the "authoritarian" variety -- to ask questions about things like the ongoing effort to hide a key to a particular desk.

Since when are we not supposed to question authority?