Personality of lawlessness...Posted by C

(Re-posted here from comments over at Hullabaloo).

W doesn't just believe the presidency is above the law. He believes that he, personally, is above the law.

I don't think that it's simple sociopathy. It's hard for me to imagine that a true sociopath with family wealth at his disposal would not be caught up in smaller fetishistic diversions that would keep him away from politics.

It's likely in part a function of privilege. Believe it or not, some of the sons and daughters of privilege actually believe they are not just luckier, but, rather, better than those lower born. Not all the privilged are so inclined, and not all of them that are go the next step and believe that the law does not apply to them.

But some do.

(Now, lest I be accused of simple rich-bashing, there are poor people who believe they are above the law, too, but due to their lack of privilege, they usually get jailed rather than recieve MBAs from Yale.)

W is like Raskolnikov in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, thinking that the law does not apply to exceptional individuals like himself. (W, however, will never be racked with guilt nor atone for his sins. In fact, W may very well believe that God is on his side, that he has been chosen by God to be above the law.)

W laughs when he breaks the law. He laughs when he lies. He laughs at those who won't break the law or lie, and relishes the advantage he has over them. He is utterly unrepentant.

The nation, the whole world, is there for W and his friends to plunder. Laws are no more than the rules of some game: there to inhibit the rubes, and to be broken by him whenever it suits him and he can get away with it.

Now W occupies the highest office in the land. We can only hope he is too bored with the whole thing to dissolve Congress and cancel elections in 2008.  ¶ 10:24 AM