The wing conspirators are at it again, but this time it's the left demonizing the right. Make that "Freudinizing."
In two recent instances, spokespersons on the left have opined that the right's "hatred" of former President Bill Clinton is a function of "Freudian projection." That is, those who hate Clinton really hate themselves.
Both Paul Begala, former Clinton adviser and now one-fourth of CNN's "Crossfire," and David Brock, journalist and erstwhile right-wing conspirator, have used the same language - psychological projection - to describe Clinton's opponents. Mere coincidence? Or the outlines of a vast left-wing conspiracy?
I first noticed the suggestion that Clinton-hating is really a psychological pathology while reading a Barnes and Noble interview with Brock following publication of his latest confessional, "Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative." The B&N interviewer (www.bn.com) asked Brock why he thought conservatives hated (and still hate) liberals such as Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Brock: "Clinton-hating is a complex phenomenon, more an emotional aversion than an intellectual one." (Translation: too hard for ignoramuses on the right to understand.)
Also: "Clinton-hating is a psychological phenomenon: They see in the Clintons the very qualities that they hate in themselves."
Next came Begala in an interview with www.buzzflash.com, sort of a left-wing Drudge Web site that pulls news stories to help lefties justify their loathing of the right.
BuzzFlash: "How can you explain the virulent hate that so many people in the right wing have for Clinton? It just seems inexplicable. I mean, it is so bilious."
Begala: "I've thought about this a lot. My latest pet theory is projection - the psychological theory that says you take things you hate most about yourself, project them onto somebody else and attack them for that. So in other words, I think this is self-hatred projected on an innocent man.
"I believe these people hate themselves. I believe they hate our country. I believe they hate our culture. And they can't deal with that. They can't accept the level of self-loathing that they have, and so they project it onto someone else."
There you have it - a pet theory with more than one master. Can it be long before everyone understands that Clinton was a great president whose unfortunate libido and tendency toward prevarication were in fact reflections of conservatives' self-hatred? In no time, we'll have a new psychological syndrome known as "Clinton Complex."
We'll understand sufferers of "Clinton Complex" to be people who hate liars and adulterers