[Torie]

Michael Medved mentioned this on his radio talk show today, and I did a Google, and found this. Medved said the Duke shrinks diagnosed Coolidge, Grant, and Lincoln as ill. Medved said that the only politician around today he thought was really nuts was Gore. And so it goes.

[DemforBush]

Does Clinton count twice for being a pathological liar AND a sexual deviant?

[Howlin]

Are they now going to say Bush is crazy?

[furquhart]

I don't know about the rest.

But I think that any fair reading of Lincoln's life (and I've read more than a few biographies) would likely suggest that he was clinically depressed. Coolidge also seems to have suffered from severe depression as a result of the death of his son while he was in office.

[Graybeard58]

Howard Taft apparently suffered from sleep apnea.

That's a mental ilness?

[Old Professer]

Doctor's offices are littered with depression literature, being sick doesn't exactly lead to gaiety; the archetypal fool is the madman of the past, today's nut case is so sad he's as serious as a heart attack.

Projection is the refuge of the self-absorbed.

[conservative cat]

Howard Taft apparently suffered from sleep apnea.

How is sleep apnea a mental illness or was that just a filler sentence?

[onyx]

Good grief.

[I still care]

Junk science.

Sleep apnea is mental illness? And social phobia - Isn't that just shyness? If it's so bad they are truly phobic, I doubt they could get through a campaign.

Now people may have a tendency towards certain problems, but who doesn't?

[BostonianRightist]

"Social phobia is kind of remarkable in a president. It meant he was shy and avoided social circumstances, and yet he was president," Swartz said.

Shyness is a mental disorder? Duke psychiatrists: proving once again why psychiatry is a useless field of study.

[hawkeye101]

Half of the Presidents have been liberals. Liberalism is a mental disorder.

[ozzymandus]

I know one recent President who was a psychopathic liar and a serial sexual offender.

[Berlin_Freeper]

How many psychiatrists at the Duke University Medical Center suffer from mental illness?

[x]

It looks like they have a hard time separating mental from physical conditions, or illnesses from vices or moods. Of course, when you want to know what Washington or Lincoln was like, you don't turn to these guys. You go to a good biography that can tell you more than a long distance diagnosis.

I have to wonder about the "Captain Queeg" factor, though. If a candidate really does have some sort of neurosis or disorder, it would be a good idea not to elect him. The long campaigns we have may do something to weed out candidates who have some mental problems -- though some disorders may actually work to a politician's advantage, at least until they get elected.

Some conditions, though, may not show up until a crisis happens. The idea that you can separate out those the determined from overly rigid, or the easy-going from the spinless before hand is a delusion, since those who write such long-distance analyses are usually influenced more by their own prejudices than by actual objective data.

[raygun]

That's really not suprising at all. I'm certain that every modern President (and any national leader for that matter) has to be neurotic at least (and we all are to some extent). How can anybody live in he fishbowl known as the U.S. Presidency? What do they know about reality? I believe it was Nixon who somehow slipped out of his room at some hotel somewhere. The Secret Service was horrified to discover that he was missing. They finally found him in the cafeteria sitting at a table and talking to some guy while both were munching hamburgers.

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Carter was and is definitely mentally ill...but even more so are the people who idolize him.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Luckily those Presidents didn't have any self declared geniuses around telling them how sick they were, or they may have perished from hypochrondia before their time.

[Cyclopean Squid]

Psycho-history is lame. But it's sure a heck of a lot better than socio-cultural history.

[beyond the sea]

49% of US Presidents suffered mental illness in Duke study

100% of LIBERALS are nuts.

[thoughtomator]

Elect Hillary and get an even 50%.

[Clock King]

Just more verbal diarrhea from the "I hate America" crowd. Ignore them or shout them down, it doesn't matter, because they are not adults, hate their own lives, hate freedom, and want to die. I wish they'd just do it and leave the rest of us in peace.