(image via the BS Report)

THE ONE'S "DITHERING" ON AFGHANISTAN MAKES TOTAL SENSE...

...to him. He can't help it. He has a devastating personality disorder. From The Bookworm Room:

Narcissists have no strong inner sense of self. Instead, they have just a gaping hole of inadequacy. They compensate by elevating to staggering levels of importance the way in which others view them. Other people’s perceptions provide their mirror. Think about this for a moment: I bet you know who you are and what you stand for. If you think you’re a good or smart person, the fact that your wife is 10 pounds overweight or your husband has a stutter is irrelevant to your sense of self. For a narcissist, the spouse’s “failings” indicate to everyone that the narcissist is a loser. Remember, he has no inner guide to his own qualities. Despite (or because of) this internal emptiness, narcissists are obsessed with hierarchy, and with the need to remind themselves, and everyone else, that they are on the top of the heap. It’s the low self-esteem of the exceptionally arrogant person.

Clinton was a narcissist who filled the emptiness with female adulation. His little brain was ticking away with “I’m a charming stud. I’m a charming stud.”

Obama’s little brain says “Everyone can see I’m a genius. Everyone can see I’m a genius.” The problem with that definition, of course, is that it’s unanchored to moral beliefs or values or guiding principles or anything else decent and internalized. It’s a standard measured only by other people’s praise. The problem with this external measurement, of course, is that if you make a mistake the praise goes away. Narcissists cannot afford mistakes. And the best way to avoid a mistake is not to make a decision. And there you have it. Obama is being tested, and he cannot afford, because of his own self-image, to make a decision that might be wrong. So he does nothing at all, while the Taliban burnishes its strength, and our troops die.

We have seen the effects of his mental illness played out over and over. This is just the latest example. And it's not just our Fearless Leader- this illness has spread to epidemic proportions in our society, and so we have a president that reflects it. This warped world view is so rigorously propagated and enforced through the schools and media that we are all affected by it. I know I am. It takes effort and persistence to counter-act it when you're soaking in it.

For more on this, per usual, Dr. Sanity has insightful things to say about this illness and how it plays out, here and here.