In the News...

From the usual source.  And from James Taranto in yesterday's WSJ, this:

The Ego Has Landed

Here's one of our favorite bits from the New York Times WikiLeaks story:

Bargaining to empty the Guantánamo Bay prison: When American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle detainees, they became reluctant players in a State Department version of "Let's Make a Deal." Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama.

And if the Slovenians didn't want to meet with President Obama, they'd have to take two prisoners!

Today's Times, meanwhile, reports that "the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (due out in 2013, and known as DSM-5) has eliminated five of the 10 personality disorders that are listed in the current edition":

Narcissistic personality disorder is the most well-known of the five. . . .

The central requirement for N.P.D. is a special kind of self-absorption: a grandiose sense of self, a serious miscalculation of one's abilities and potential that is often accompanied by fantasies of greatness. . . .

The second requirement for N.P.D.: since the narcissist is so convinced of his high station (most are men), he automatically expects that others will recognize his superior qualities and will tell him so. . . .

Finally, the narcissist, who longs for the approval and admiration of others, is often clueless about how things look from someone else's perspective. Narcissists are very sensitive to being overlooked or slighted in the smallest fashion, but they often fail to recognize when they are doing it to others.

Most of us would agree that this is an easily recognizable profile, and it is a puzzle why the manual's committee on personality disorders has decided to throw N.P.D. off the bus.

Can the timing be coincidental? And don't they mean "under the bus"?

The first bullet point describes more than a few politicos and one or two people I actually know.  But, Hey!  Self-absorption is no longer a problem!  The lunatics HAVE taken over the asylum.