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" . . . a (Republican) man hears what he wants to hear and all the rest is lies and jest . . ."

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At first, the possibility that the latest hacking story might add another bit of evidence for use by the liberals to make the assertion that the Conservatives have gone completely mad, seemed to be just another routine incident indicating that the Conservatives had done something else that was vile and reprehensible; but then we took a closer look at it our blood ran cold.  Not just very afraid like the moment when you realize that the car you are driving is going to do a roll-over and you are probably going to die, but the "scared silly" reaction a person would get when he realizes that he is dealing with a cold-blooded murderer who makes "Rudy the Red" seem like someone who engaged in frat-boy pranks.

We don't mean intriguing like when AP in Reno asked if we could pull a head shot out of the negative used for a group photo that "ran a few weeks ago" because one of the people in the shot had been indicted for murder.

We don't mean the "he really means it" moment when one of the guys, who was a high school classmate, threatens to arrest another member of the class on the family's front porch because the new lawman doesn't appreciate something that was just said.

We mean the "this guy your are being introduced to is subject to arrest in a foreign country for war crimes" type of moment.  

The psychological implications of this new "e-mails reveal" scandal are truly of the "bone chilling" level if they are examined closely.

On Thursday, February 10, 2011, we scurried back to our writer's hovel to hear the first hour of the Mike Malloy radio show because we wanted to hear what the substitute (Brad of the Brad Blog) host would say about the plight of the Teamsters.  When he started to detail the facts for the United States Chamber of Commerce Dirty Tricks story, we thought that the basic modus operandi for the caper sounded amazingly similar to what the defenders of Dan Rather said when he was discredited.  We only got to hear one hour because the San Francisco station cut away at 7 p.m. PST for a sports broadcast.   (Could there be a conservative plot to buy air time on Green Radio for UCB women's basketball games and thereby shut down the best liberal talk show for two hours or is that just another example of this columnist's usual lunatic conspiracy theories way of thinking?)

According to Brad and other sources found online on Friday, the basic conservative strategy being employed now is to feed a liberal doctored evidence for a potential scandal that would have embarrassing consequences for the conservatives, and then, after the story is published, to reveal that the cooked up story was phony and the shocking revelation that the story is bogus thereby discredits the reporter, his publication, show, or web site in particular and journalism in general.

What if, we asked ourselves, the psychological phenomenon known as "projection" is in play here?  Projection means that a person projects his personality onto everyone else.  Thus if a person were a pathological liar he would assume that everyone else in the world was one too.  

There is a disturbing stealth warning at work in the new revelations.  If someone, who is a pathological liar, manipulates a reporter into a vulnerable position and rigs the fact checking process to help the sting operation achieve its goal and relies on gullibility for "proof" that another person is dishonest; then why isn't the conniving nature of the deception self evident to a person thinking rationally?  

If the pathological liar is so thoroughly committed to the sting operation that he doesn't see the basic dishonesty inherent in his ploy, he will fool himself and only paid teabag operatives will "act" as if they have been convinced by the charade.  When it becomes obvious that they are fooling themselves, one has to ask what the successful self-deception reveals about their inner psychology.  Have they completely lost touch with reality and, if so, what can be done to "treat the patient"?

Note:  How does a pathological liar differ from a compulsive liar?   Hypothetical case.  A young lady leaves the dirty dishes in the sink and goes out for an afternoon of shopping.  When she returns the dishes have been cleaned and put in the drying rack.  She asks her boyfriend, who has been there all the while, if he washed the dishes.

A compulsive liar will say "No." and any questions about the illogical response will be ignored.  A pathological liar, such as the husband portrayed in the movie "Gaslight" would say,  "You did them!  Don't you remember that you did them just before you went shopping?"  A compulsive liar lies because he has to tell fibs.  A pathological liar uses lies to achieve an ultimate goal.

Liberal victims will, like O. J. at a pretrial press conference, look like a poor example of amateur theatrics in their righteous indignation regarding the shoddy kindergarten level shenanigans.   (If the glove doesn't fit; you must acquit!  Do you think that maybe the goddamn thing had shrunk while it was improperly stored in the evidence locker?)  The histrionics will be denounced as a pathetic example of the manifestation of a desperate conspiracy nut seeking group acceptance.  

Isn't the "conspiracy theory!" rebuttal a variation of the "I'm not lying; you are!" line of reasoning?  Doesn't the conspiracy theory rebuttal work just as well as Monty Python's debating tactic of contradicting everything?  

What is the mental health of someone who will prey on gullibility to foster the perception that the prank's victim is actually the liar?   If they have convinced only themselves of the validity of their frat boy joke, doesn't that indicate that they have completely lost touch with reality?   Isn't that another way of saying that they have gone TFI (i.e. gone totally bonkers) as in:   "I'd like you to meet my friend who lives with his "family" out on the Spawn ranch.   Say "how do you do?' to Charlie Manson!"

Didn't we see a news story asserting that Karl Rove is engineering the effort to "get" Julian Assange?  Isn't every man, woman, and child in America supposed to think that Assange is a lying, cheatin' double dealin' guy who isn't really entitled to a freedom of the press defense?  Isn't that the "I'm not lying; you are!" argument in action?

Where will this string of discredited journalist stings end?   Isn't the snide response of "at the Cathedral of Light ceremony" yet another example of the "you are a conspiracy nut, lying SOB if you suspect recent events are from a hypothetical Rove playbook for engineering a 2012 win for JEB" way lefties think?

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BP graduated from college in the mid sixties (at the bottom of the class?) He told his draft board that Vietnam could be won without his participation. He is still appologizing for that mistake. He received his fist photo lesson from a future (more...)
 

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