Dr. Krauthammer reviving a discarded practice:

Over at the Howler, there are some good observations about Charles Krauthammer inappropriately using his medical degree to "diagnose" Howard Dean. What Krauthammer has done is inexcusable, but not original. From Presidential Campaigns Paul F. Boller Jr. 1984, 1985 Third printing

Chapter Twenty-Eight
1896
McKinley, Bryan, and Free Silver

Page 176

Bryan and the Alienists

Bryan was the first presidential candidate to attract the attention of professional psychologists (or "aliensts" as they were then called). On September 27, the New York Times published an editorial entitled "Is Mr. Bryan crazy?" The Times thought he was and as proof presented a list of extravagant statements Bryan had made in the campaign. "No one," said the editors, "can look through it without feeling that these are not adaptations of intelligent reason to intelligent ends." The same issue of the Times featured a letter by "an eminent alienst" 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 "a madman in the White House."

The eminent alienst's letter touched off an orgy of polemical psychologizing about Bryan. On September 29 the Times published a series of interviews with New York psychologists with the heading, "Is Mr. Bryan a Mattoid?" The next day there were more interviews and a new headline: "Paranoid or Mattoid?" Most of the psychologists interviewed regarded Bryan as mentally unfit, though they could not agree on the technical epithet: megalomania, delerium, mattoid, paranoia querulenta, querulent logorrhoea, graphomania, paranoia reformatoria. Admonished one psychologist: "We must rid our minds of the idea that Mr. Bryan is ordinarily crazy ... But I should like to examine him for a degenerate." Another professional thought paranoia was much too good for Bryan. "I do not think," he said solemnly, "that he was ever of large enough caliber to think clearly and consecutively. His mental territory is not sufficiently extensive. A sophomore at City College has a better education. To accuse him of paranoia is to flatter him, in as much as a paranoiac may have a large organization, even if perverted."

Footnote for the above is 30. In the Notes portion of the book, 30 is: Werner, Bryan, 108-109; Jones, Election of 1896, 306.

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Chapter Forty-Five
1964
Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society

Page 318

Psychopolitics

Goldwater's sanity, like Bryan's in 1896 and T.R.'s in 1912 was partisanly called into 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 off the personal political opinions of psychiatrists as therapeutic exercise.

Footnote for the above is 36. In the Notes portion of the book, 36 is: Faber, Road to White House, 206.

posted by Quiddity at 12/20/2003 11:24:00 AM