Perspective: Is Obama Psychologically Fit to be President?

By any measure the Obama presidency is an abject failure, and everyone knows it, including our allies. The poor performance includes destructive policy selection, failure to lead, to govern and deliberate over reach of power. The way the citizens voted in 2014 indicates that they made a mistake by voting to keep this President in 2012, so are there other ways to remove this President before more harm is done?

Writers such as Bob Woodward, Robert Gates, Leon Panetta, and now Chuck Todd have tried to understand Obama and have published their thoughts. However, each of these authors seems stumped to explain Obama’s behavior. They all believe that he is incredibly smart and a voracious reader; yet, something is missing.

What if what is missing is that Obama has some malady that renders him incapable of discharging his duties? Are there psychological factors that might explain this uncharacteristic behavior of our President? Let’s consider some that may affect his ability to perform his Constitutional duties.

Atychiphobi
Obama has all of the signs of atychiphobi which means abnormal, persistent and unwarranted fear. In Obama’s case it is fear of failure which is a psychological disorder that impedes one’s ability to act. Clues of this phenomenon include his failure to lead, failure to negotiate with Congress, avoiding the building of interpersonal relationships required for successful negotiating, deferring decision making while being the “cool no drama Obama”, and blaming others for the failure of his or his organization.

Paraphrasing another President, Obama seems to believe that the “only thing to fear is anything fearful”. There is hardly any responsibility of the presidency that does not require one to be able to manage fear. His failure to take responsibility for his or his administration’s failures means that to paraphrase another President, with Obama, “the buck stops elsewhere”.

Pathological Untruth Telling
This characteristic may be tied into each of the physiological factors being discussed. Prevarication helps to disguise Obama’s true motives. Does the phrase “you can keep your doctor”, ring a bell?

Dementia:
Another question is his inability to recall critical events. This raises the question whether he is experiencing incipient dementia. For a person who is only in his fifties, chronic memory loss seems strange, but there are numerous examples of this. For example, he admits freely that he only learns from the news media about the numerous and serious crises occurring in his administration. Yet, he is briefed daily about these critical events by his staff.

The most recent and clearest example of dementia occurred when Jon Gruber was taped numerous times claiming that Obamacare only became law by duping the public who were too stupid to figure it out. Obama while in Australia was shocked to learn that Jon Gruber, an economics PhD from MIT, helped create Obamacare. However, Obama has been caught on tape touting the skills and strengths of Gruber before the work on Obamacare began and doubtless recommended him for the job. This is the same Jon Gruber who claims that he is one of the architects of Obamacare and was paid $400k to work on the bill. Moreover, this is the same Gruber who visited the Whitehouse numerous times to discuss the bill, often when Obama was present.

If we were to conclude that Obama has underlying psychological issues such as fear of failing, pathological lying and dementia that impede his performing his Constitutional duty, the 25th Amendment to the Constitution may provide a remedy.

Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution states in essence that:

In the Case of the President’s Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Congress may by Law provide the Case of Removal and the Vice-President shall act as President until the President has recovered or until another President is elected.

Consequently, Congress could deem Obama “Inable” to perform his presidential duties in the manner that the Constitution describes. Therefore, he could be removed from office until he is ‘cured’ of his malady or until another President is elected.

Can you just imagine members of Congress having the courage to apply this remedy? Of course not!! Therefore, all we have left is prayer!! But wait! Maybe not even that! The atheists will probably have prayer banned in public places. Then all we would have are the saloons and bars. But wait, again! The drinks will probably be taxed beyond our reach to support Obamacare.

Bettie Davis said it best! “Fasten your seat belts, its going to be a bumpy ride!”

Perspective: What Should the Priority be for Congress and the Administration?

The exit polls from the November 5^th election
showed that an overwhelming majority of voters’ top priority was the expansion
of the economy with attendant job creation. Fortunately, this wish can be
accommodated because we have a unique once in a life time opportunity that stares
us right in the face; namely, our natural gas and petroleum windfall!! The
wonderful part of this opportunity is that it also meets the main principles
that both parties hold in common, namely:  

• Job
  Creation
• Protection
  of the Environment
• Protection
  of Our Citizens

Therefore, what the Congress and the President need to do is
to focus like a laser to create and pass legislation to (1)Maximize the development
and the exploitation of our vast reserves of natural gas and oil and (2) eliminate
the disadvantage our corporations have by making their taxes globally competitive. 

Here is how it would work: 

Creation of Low Tech Jobs:

It turns out that the cost of natural gas is about half that
of gas or diesel fuels, and we have the technology to convert the internal
combustion engines from gas or diesel to compressed natural gas (CNG), and we
have the technology to create the re-fueling facilities. Many of our busses,
taxis and garbage trucks have already been converted. 

If we were to adopt a National policy to convert a maximum
number of our trucks and cars to CNG, and we installed the needed re-fueling
stations across the Nation, millions of low skill jobs could be created for
those underemployed or who have stopped looking for employment. This could
begin at once and would probably take two decades or so to complete. Most of
the currently unemployed and underemployed have sufficient skills to perform
these tasks with minimum if any additional training. Moreover, because the need
to build this infrastructure is national in scale, most of these jobs are in
the very areas where these persons currently reside.  

Creation of High Tech Jobs:

Ethane, a major building block for chemicals and polymers,
is a component of natural gas. As a result the availability of this low cost
raw material, numerous chemical manufacturers, who in recent years have moved
plants overseas, now plan multi-billion dollar plants in the US.
BASF a German chemical company and incidentally the largest chemical
manufacturer in the world, is planning a 4 billion dollar petrochemical plant in
the US based on
this low cost ethane gas.  We can expect
that the low cost of energy from methane along with our leading edge in
technology will play a role in bringing manufacturing jobs back to the US.
If there are no serious regulations or tax barriers to thwart this effort, we
can expect to see the middle class income to rise as these new jobs pay wages
significantly above the wages middle class workers make today.

 

Protection of the Environment

Converting our internal combustion engines to CNG, would
reduce carbon emissions by 25% or more and toxic emissions by more than 50%. No
other environmental plan could have a greater favorable and immediate impact on
the environment than this program. Moreover, we could stop putting food in our
gas tanks by the elimination of ethanol as a gas addititive. 

Protection of our Citizens

It turns out that the same fracking technology which
produces natural gas also produces oil. As a result very shortly we will be
self sufficient in oil so much so that we could become an exporter of oil, and
if we convert trucks and cars to CNG, we would even have more oil to export. By
exporting oil to Europe, we could cause Russia’s
share of the market to drop as well as their prices. Since Russia’s
economy is completely dependent on revenue from oil and gas, this action would
have a greater impact than any sanctions. Furthermore, this would be a much
better way to deal with Russia
than to have a military conflict. 

Advantages of Proposed Policy:

In addition to creating jobs, helping with environmental
issues and strengthening our hand in the confrontation with Russia,
there are numerous financial benefits that accrue to this program as well.
First, while inflation overall has been below 2 percent for the past decade or
so, food, gas and heating fuel prices have nearly doubled. The increases in the
prices of these items have impacted the middle class disproportionately. Secondly,
with corn removed from fuel and returned to its use as food, the price of food
will come down. Thirdly, with local production of oil, OPEC control of the
price of oil will be neutralized, so one might expect heating fuel prices to be
reduced, as well. Finally, the dollar will be strengthened by our not having to
import oil, and enhanced further by our export of newly discovered  oil as well as the export of corn which will no
longer be needed for ethanol. 

Enacting an energy policy will return the United
States to a place of economic and political
leadership in the world. But most importantly, it will give the middle class
hope and confidence that the American Dream is not dead. They could have faith
that their children can do as well as or perhaps even better than they. When in
history has there been such an opportunity to solve so many problems at once?