Kooky Krauthammer:

From Presidential Campaigns by Paul F. Boller Jr. (1985 Oxford University Press)

1896
[William Jennings] Bryan was the first presidential candidate to attract the attention of professional psychologists. On September 27, the New York Times published an editorial entitled "Is Mr. Bryan Crazy?" ... The same issue of the Times featured a letter by "an eminent [psychologist]" announcing that an analysis of Bryan's speeches led inescapably to the conclusion that the Democratic candidate was unbalanced and that if he won the election there would be a "madman in the White House." (pg. 176)

1912
Some people questioned T.R.'s sanity. Dr. Allen McLane Hamilton discussed the subject in the New York Times. Dr. Morton Prince wrote a long paper about it. "T.R. would go down in history," declared Prince ... "as one of the most illustrious psychological examples of the distortion of conscious mental process through the process of subconscious wishes." (pg. 199)

1964
Goldwater's sanity, like Bryan's in 1896 and T.R.'s in 1912, was partisanly called in question. The magazine Fact polled 12,356 psychiatrists on the question, "Is Barry Goldwater psychologically fit to be president of the United States?" Only 2,417 replied: 1,189 said "no," 657 said "yes," and 571 said they didn't know enough about it to answer. Both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association dismissed Fact's poll as yellow journalism and criticized the editor for trying to pass of the personal political opinions of psychiatrists as therapeutic expertise. [our emphasis] (pg. 318)

From Talking Points Memo by Josh Marshall

2002
Isn't there something tasteless and shameful about a psychiatrist -- or a no-longer-practicing psychiatrist -- lazily questioning a public figure's mental health because he disagrees with that person's political views? Here's Charles Krauthammer from yesterday on Fox News Sunday ...

I'm a psychiatrist. I don't usually practice on camera. But this is the edge of looniness, this idea that there's a vast conspiracy, it sits in a building, it emanates, it has these tentacles, is really at the edge. He could use a little help ...

posted by Quiddity at 12/03/2002 08:19:00 AM