"It Was Like He Was Raised by Wolves"

We all have our own ways of falling out of love. There are no right and wrong ways to discover that our hopes have been dashed, or that we have been fooled, tricked, or had. Finding out that we have misjudged someone's character or misread our own feelings is painful indeed.

We have all had the experience. We have all gotten over it. Such is life.

And most of us do it in private. We have enough trouble with our own lost love; we do not want to be privy to everyone else's mistakes.

As I and many others have noted, you do not need to have an intimate relationship to fall in love. You can fall in love with an image, with a mirage, even with an icon. You can fall in love with a celebrity, from a safe distance, and invest all of your hope in his presumably salutary persona.

And you can fall in love with a politician, with a leader, even with a demagogue.

If it ever should happen that you find yourself falling in love with a political leader, that should tell you, off the top, that he is not a very capable leader. He might be overflowing with eloquence and charisma, but if you are feeling especially amorous, you are almost certainly idealizing him. If you have to idealize a leader, you are compensating for the lack of true leadership qualities.

Such is the case of the pundits and media mavens who fell in love with Barack Obama. See my previous comments here. When you have sacrificed your professional integrity to your love affair with a mirage, you have, as they say, some serious 'splaining to do.

Thus my interest in Maureen Dowd's latest effort to salvage her love for Barack Obama. Clearly, she has been disappointed by him; clearly he has let her down. Just as clearly, she is not alone. To use one of Obama's favorite tropes, he is not the man she thought he was. Link here.

In truth, when you fall madly in love, the person is never the person you thought they were. That's why they call it "mad."

How did she get him so wrong? Having asked herself the question, Dowd responds that compared with his two predecessors, Clinton and Bush, Obama seemed to be "normal."

Leave to the side that Obama was not running against either Bill Clinton or George Bush, Dowd seems to be using the word "normal" to describe a state that is supposed to be goal of therapy. She is saying, get this, that Obama is not as normal as he seemed to be, and thus, he would be a better president, he could repair their relationship and revive her dying love, by getting some therapy!

All of those who have been imploring Obama to get in touch with his feelings, the better to project some anger about what is going on in the Gulf are saying that Obama's presidency can be cured by therapy.

If you are not immersed in the therapy culture, you might be surprised at what Dowd is implying: namely, that if Obama were more normal then he would naturally know how to provide leadership, would be able to take control of situations, and would show the right emotion at the right time.

As we all know, traditional psychotherapy has never concerned itself with practicalities like managing your life or your relationships. It has always assumed that if you resolve your past issues and get in touch with your feelings, you will automatically know how to deal with whatever problems cross your path.

It's job is to lead you toward normality, or, at least, toward a reasonable facsimile. Once you are sufficiently normal you will naturally make the right decisions and do the right thing.

In therapy, this has never really worked as promised. If you know why you are afraid of riding a bicycle, that does not mean that you now know how to ride a bicycle. In truth, the best way to get over your fear of bicycles is to jump on a bike.

The history of psychotherapy is populated by patients who have explored all of their complexes and resolved their issues to the full satisfaction of their therapists, but, who still have the same problems they had when they began therapy.

What would Obama be doing if he possessed sufficient psychological health? Dowd answers: "President Obama's bloodless quality about people and events, the emotional detachment that his aides said allowed him to see things more clearly, has instead obscured his vision. It has made him unable to understand things quickly on a visceral level and put him on the defensive in this spring of our discontent, failing to understand that Americans are upset that a series of greedy corporations have screwed over the little guy without enough fierce and immediate pushback from the president."

As it happens, Dowd is right about Obama's bloodless quality, his failure to grasp events, and perhaps even his failure to accept his role as president. And let's notice that she is trying to show him how to use strong rhetoric to express fierce rage.

But she is wrong to say that it would all be better if Obama expressed enough anger. As Dr. Helen Smith wrote two weeks ago, getting angry does not help. Link here. Great leaders are not distinguish for the quality or depth of their emotions. They are, as Dr. Helen says, cool, rational, and in command of the situation. Obama does not need to channel the rage of Maureen Dowd; he needs to emulate Bobby Jindal.

Of course, it's possible to be too cool, and too detached, so completely overwhelmed by events that you look lost.

And therein lies another kind of problem. Dowd identifies it well by quoting an especially telling remark made by Michelle Obama. In Dowd's words: "Michelle once told a friend that 'Barack spent so much time by himself that it was like he was raised by wolves.' But he seems to have come through exceptionally well adjusted."

Ann Althouse was not impressed by Dowd's begging the basic question. Althouse comments: "How does that work? Raised-by-wolfishness leads to (a semblance) of normality? Solitude fosters a deep longing to be with others and one overachieves in the appearance of normal department?" Link here.

Happily enough, Althouse includes a picture of herself under a statue of the legendary she-wolf that nursed Romulus and Remus, both of whom turned out fairly well. Even if only in mythic terms.

Look at what is implied in the notion that it was like Obama was raised by wolves. Being brought up spending too much time with yourself would not make you a very engaged and emotionally connected husband. Being alone and isolated, you would not have learned basic skills like cooperation, teamwork, negotiation, and leadership. Failing to spend enough time with others you would not have learned how to get along with others. In those cases you are not likely to know how to form friendships and relationships. And you will not have a clue about how to lead.

Someone who is brought up in isolation, who does not have the experience of fitting into groups, has probably, if he is bright, lived within his mind. And he probably relates to great minds more than to people who know how to get things done in the world, who know how to organize groups, and accomplish tasks.

If he lived in his mind, he might have come to believe that minds should prevail over matter, that minds create worlds, that a group of great thinkers can solve anything. Keep in mind that no one around Obama has had real administrative and managerial experience.

As it happens, Ann Althouse also voted for Obama, not because she thought that he was "normal" but because, she thought he was the better of the two choices. And now, she advises Maureen Dowd to accept responsibility for her vote. In her words: "We need to see what we have done. We've elected a man and we need to cast aside our silly illusions and see what we've done."