Excuse me Mr. President, Your Freudian Slip is Showing!

Sigmund Freud's theory of psychoanalysis states that how we behave is driven largely by our ID, a kind of blueprint we inherit. It is the home of our most base instincts and drives us, unconsciously, to gratify the self. Freud also explains how our Ego is shaped by our surroundings and leads to what he called common sense or reason. The Super-Ego is kind of our guilt mom and acts to restrain our behaviors by giving us remorse for socially unacceptable behaviors. Freud's work was largely centered around understanding the subconscious ID and why it affected the Ego, and in some cases, why the Super-Ego failed to be the traffic cop to keep it all together.

What does this have to do with today's writing? When looking at the actions, comments and activities of the Obama administration, one can see some interesting, if unscientific parallels to Freud's signature work.


Lets start with the Obama administration's traffic cop or Super-Ego. It seems that there is little to no restraint on the various advisers ability to drag the Ego (Obama) into all kinds of messes. The Chicago Olympic bid is one such misstep that common sense should have, as Nancy Reagan used to say, "Just Say No" to.

The President and his wife went to Copenhagen. Not the snuff, the city in Denmark. His purpose was to add supposed the last bit of star-power to a delegation that included his wife, Michelle, Oprah and 18 US Olympic Gold Medal winners necessary to persuade the 2016 Olympics voting committee to award the 2016 games to Chicago. The trip required two planes at huge taxpayer expense and one supposes that the President needed more space on Air-force One to tote his enlarging ID, requiring him to send extra schmooze power ahead by ... a day.

Despite all the firepower and the political, not to mention the political popularity he has gained from his, "I apologize for America" Obama Apology Tour, Chicago was eliminated in the first round.

Using my paraphrased Freudian methodology, the administration's collective Super-Ego or guilt power is failing to restrain the President's desire to do what he wants, when he wants in the following ways.

1. It is unprecedented in US history that a sitting president has flown to make a Billy Maise style pitch to the IOC. Pundits have largely criticized the trip based on cost, the use of two planes and the length of the visit as a campaign style blitz on the Olympic committee with the intent of using the President's worldwide popularity as the grease to move the games to the place of ultimate political grease.

2. The President's advisors, especially Valerie Jarrett and David Axerod, should not have allowed the President to make such a pitch, without knowing a certain outcome as it makes the President and the US look silly. After all, we were eliminated in the first vote.

3. It took mere hours for Democrats to come out and say that Chicago was eliminated because of former President Bush, who like Chucky, continues to come back to haunt the living. Even the largely irrelevant Rev. Jesse Jackson took a break from his child support check writing session to pile on. According to these broken members of the President's Super-Ego, the former President did so much to destroy the economy and the prestige of the US in the world view that it is going to take years to repair it and therefore, every failure will be on the shoulders of a man who has no power in current regime, rather than the one who does.

The President's ID isn't driven by life instincts such as survival. In fact, his ID is out of whack in that he is choosing a path that will assure the Democratic Party's maiming in the 2010 elections. Cap and Trade, Healthcare reform, closing Gitmo and the narcissistic belief that if we just believe in him, it will somehow all pay for itself all speak to the unreasonableness of the scope and scale of what he wants.

Fact of the matter is, the Democrats are desperate to institute the horrendously expensive plans before the next election cycle begins. Failing to close out the deal before November will likely mean that those politicians who seek reelection next year in conservative areas will likely falter in their support of plans they know will crush the economy and destroy millions of people's lives. The President's allies are blaming this on the Republicans, but the reality is that there are (or soon will be) a 60 vote Senate majority. The Democrats can't even muster 100 percent of their own caucus, because it is clearly politically radioactive.

Democrats are likely to get the amended Baucus bill out on the floor of the Senate this week or next. The rough gauge for now is that it will fail to garner the 60 votes because the federal or state public option requirements will make it too hot to handle. The Dems will come back with watered down plan that will slowly begin to increase the taxes on the middle and upper classes and will cover some additional people. The waste and fraud in current systems, as well as the tort reforms to punish junk lawsuits and reduce the underlying reasons for skyrocketing costs will be left on the wayside and the Democrats, unable to muster all the ranks, will resort to parliamentary tricks to pass these tax increases and restrictions on Citizen Freedoms.

If the President's Super-Ego is failing to restrain his rampant desire for self aggrandizement, it should become the responsibility The People to act as his conscious, just as was done during the Clinton Health Care years. It must fall to the people to fix the broken Super-Ego of the Obama administration and reign in his out of control ID. The American people cannot afford the therapy bills they will need if he is not curtailed to more reasonable goals.

Mike Rowland

Blogger's Note: The preceding analysis is not scientific or medical in nature. It is a comical illustration of Freud's work in psychoanalysis as applied to a larger entity, in this case, the current administration and its advisors. Do not report me to the AMA for practicing medicine without a license.