Fox News ‘Psycho’ Analyst: How To Build A Terrorist/Tea Party

Keith Ablow, a member of Fox’s Medical “A” Team, has a long history of deranged commentary that includes praising Newt Gingrich’s serial infidelity, condemning Chaz Bono as a bad influence on America’s children, and diagnosing President Obama as “having it in for America.”

The latest contribution to his opus of asininity is an op-ed he authored that purports to explain “How To Build A Terrorist.” It’s a surprisingly simple recipe with only two ingredients:

  1. Clinging to a set of overvalued ideas that may approach the level of a psychotic delusion
  2. Being so completely severed from empathy that the suffering of ones’ victims is either ignored or celebrated.

This set of instructions sounds awfully familiar. In fact, psychotic devotion to overvalued ideas brings to mind a recent political movement that is obsessed with things like cutting taxes, balancing the budget, promoting guns, and dismissing evolution and climate change as hoaxes.

As for being severed from empathy, that fairly describes the crowd that wants to dismantle Social Security, repeal ObamaCare, cut funding for food stamps and education, deny women reproductive health services, and pour more billions into the military/industrial complex for endless wars.

Keith Ablow

Indeed, it seems like Ablow has drafted a blueprint for the Tea Party. In his warped imagination he has inadvertently stumbled upon the formula for a divisive, self-centered, ill-informed congregation of zealots who enjoy nothing better than mucking up the wheels of progress. They literally celebrated the suffering of others several times last year during the GOP primary debates. On one occasion they cheered at the prospect of letting a man with no health insurance die. On another they applauded Texas for executing more people than any other state. And who can forget them booing a gay soldier serving in Iraq?

Ablow’s terrorist construction relies on a presumption that the subject is insane. He says specifically that…

“…when a man is deprived of his empathy by a set of beliefs that casts entire groups as inhuman and worthy of death then that man is mentally ill.”

By this measure, Ablow is absolving the Boston bombers of any responsibility for their actions. They were not, according to his diagnosis, competent to make sound decisions. Ablow even extends that absolution to historical villains like Jim Jones and Hitler. it’s not their fault, they were crazy. And they exploited the weak who would follow them unquestioningly in the same manner that…

“Cults prey on those who are psychologically unstable, offering them a fixed and false (delusional) point of view on the world around them and offering them the false freedom of projecting all their suffering on others, rather than seeking to understand it and truly overcome it in themselves.”

This could not be a more accurate portrait of the Tea Party if it were deliberate. Their delusional point of view was demonstrated in frightening detail last year when they believed everything that the Koch brothers and Fox News told them, including that Obama was going to go down in flames on election day. And although the vast majority of scientific research proves that climate change is occurring, they prefer to believe talk radio hosts over climatologists.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this is the precision with which Ablow accidentally nails the Teabaggers for projecting their suffering on others. For them there is always someone else to blame, be it Muslims, Latinos, gays, etc. For them the downfall of America is easily attributable to affirmative action, terrorism, moochers, communists, atheists, labor unions, and, of course, black presidents who they fear are exerting tyrannical powers.

Check that. The most disturbing aspect of this is that Ablow has a license to practice medicine. His radically absurd ramblings would make an interesting study for a real psychiatrist. Unfortunately, Ablow would never submit to an examination. Like most paranoid schizophrenics, he would be certain that the whole thing was a plot to steal his internal organs.

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28 thoughts on “Fox News ‘Psycho’ Analyst: How To Build A Terrorist/Tea Party

  1. As is usually the case, you are lying about the Tea Party. First, your description about what the Tea Party stands for doesn’t contain one microscopic bit of trth. Not one. You sound as if you are having a hot and steamy love affair with Janeane Garofalo. Seriously, dude, your mind has totally fizzed out.

      • 1.Clinging to a set of overvalued ideas that may approach the level of a psychotic delusion
        2.Being so completely severed from empathy that the suffering of ones’ victims is either ignored or celebrated

        Mark, did you get these from Ablow’s resume’ or from his FauxNews job interview?

    • It is funny how he can only find fault with everyone else’s beliefs – his are pure and wonderful – we should all be so enlightened. Can you imagine spending your life doing that?

  2. Ablow doesn’t need to submit to an examination, all we need to do is find a psychiatrist who is as unprofessional and unprincipled as he is to examine him for us by watching him on TV. The results would be interesting!

  3. I’ve never ran into a devoted Tea Party member who did not espouse those very same beliefs, and I’ve crossed paths with quite a few.

    • Do you feel you are in danger when surrounded by those Tea Party members you know or you have met? Sounds like Mark is suggesting you should be.

      • No, I have no fear of them. They talk big but that’s about it.
        I am more afraid of how they vote without asking the simple question of “why?”. Far too many people vote how they are told and never do any research. Teh Tea Party is much the same way through their information comes from sources that are highly one sided with an agenda that, as I’ve told Tea People before, is against their best interests.

  4. It is amazing the way they always accuse others of what they themselves are doing!

  5. Mark, You have lost all credibility with this one. Beyond just a disagreement among adults about politics and policy, you have clearly demonstrated just how ignorant and hateful you are to those with whom you disagree.

    Imagine how intolerant and hurtful it would be of me to call the low information “Obamaphone” voter part of a cult based on ignorant rants from the likes of you. (Of course, using your blog is for demonstration purposes only since a real low information voter wouldn’t be reading your elitist blog.)

    • If I had a nickle for every time you and other right-wing commenters here have told me I’ve lost all credibility…..

      Rather than make ridiculous assertions as to my ignorance and hatefulness, why don’t you try rebutting what I wrote? I simply associated known Tea Party values with the points Ablow made. Everything listed has been advocated by members and leaders of the Tea Party. If you don’t like, perhaps you should renounce the Tea Party extremists who embrace it.

      • They won’t renounce or denounce the actions/words of the Tea Party members or any republican, Mark, because they are either cowards or are in silent agreement with them. They sit and watch these people tear their party apart and are so afraid of suffering repercussions from them that they act as if their lips are sealed with an extra layer of superglue. At least when we liberals see someone within our ranks say/do something offensive, we call them out for it, but the party whose members claim to be the “bravest on the planet” say nothing. Also, that old saying is true, “If you lie down with dogs, you’ll get fleas.” Therefore, if you’re affiliated with the Republican Party, and you don’t want to be lumped in with the other RW nuts, you should do something about it, weed out those with whom you don’t agree. IOWs, say/do something!!!!

        • Majii,

          When you claim that Lefties call out their own when they say something offensive, you leave yourself open to a bit of opposition. Perhaps you might grace us with a few examples.

          I, of course, am happy to name a few egregious examples where the silence from the Left has been deafening:
          1. Touré referring to Dr. Benjamin Carson as mocked Dr. Benjamin Carson as a token “black friend” to Republicans admired only to “assuage their guilt” for past racial indiscretions;
          2. Alan Grayson: Republicans want sick People to die quickly. We all know what he said; here is the outrage demonstrated by ThinkProgress ==> http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/09/30/62230/grayson-gop-plan/?mobile=nc

          Do you have your flea collar on?

          • “…lefties call out their own…”

            And just where was that massive condemnation by the left over all the evil crap that Bill Maher kept on spewing? Kirsten Powers was apparently the only one, and how does she get rewarded? Mark calls her a fake liberal, and Keith Olbermann calls her “a house-broken liberal for Fox News”.

            • The Left is about as bad as the Right when it comes to calling out their own.

              If calling out your own side came with large monitary donations then you would see more of it.

              Now the think about Fox News is this: They never hire anyone who will not support the idealism promoted by the network.

              It’s rather like giving your money over to an alcoholic who swears they’re not drinking anymore. It should make you pause and think.

      • Mark,

        As usual, you have taken isolated incidents where some people made comments or cheered a position and painted them as the official position of “The Tea Party”, and by extension, anybody who is conservative.

        I don’t have the time to look up stuff (perhaps somebody else will have some specific examples of Lefty cheering and jeering, so we can generalize that to be typical of all Democrats or left-leaning individuals. Just of the cuff, how about the outright attack on any African American who professes to be a conservative, or the assumption that when something bad happens, it must have been a right wing extremist?

        You take legitimate positions, i.e. cut taxes, balance the budget; couple them with other outlandish, out of context, hyperbolic statements, i.e. guns for everybody, health care for nobody, end food stamps, criminalize women’s health care, disenfranchise voters; so as to demonize people who disagree with you. Moreover, you lump everyone who is not in favor of things you’re in favor of, and call them ignorant and idiots.

        Let’s do the same exercise for the Left:

        a. war on poverty
        b. spend more money, raise taxes
        c. guns for nobody
        d. “affordable” health care by edict
        e. public unions protect workers from evil government bosses (so much so that in CA, they have professed themselves to be the de facto 4th branch of government)
        f. climate change is due to carbon emissions (except for those emitted by Al Gore’s private jet)
        g. the sequester was the Republicans’ idea and it is costing thousands of jobs (or is it 165 million jobs if you believe Maxine Waters — well, she wasn’t referring to the sequester; she was referring to the “Seacrester”, so maybe that doesn’t count)
        h. the sequester will likely cause the delay of a cure for cancer or aids
        i. giving people free stuff will lift them out of poverty
        j. school choice is a capitalist plot to eliminate unions
        k. Government IS the solution.

        There is no one side of the political discussion that is free of the baggage of over zealous, extremists. The problem with you, Mark, is that you vehemently disagree with that notion.

        You are the zealot on the other end of the spectrum to those you criticize, and you paint a rather ugly picture of them. Perhaps a look in the mirror at your own one-sided, arrogance and narcissism might reveal an ugly picture as well. I can tell you that except for those who agree with you, we already see it.

        I have no problem with political disagreement. Neither do I have a problem that you point out those differences. But you go way beyond that by ridiculing people, calling them stupid or ignorant, and demonizing them as if they were truly evil. By any objective measure, the words you use to describe those with whom you disagree are hurtful and hateful.

        Come on, Mark. I always thought you were better than that, but it appears you’re just doubling down.

        • You have no time to look things up, but apparently lots of time to compose long rebuttals that do not rebut. Trying to find examples of Democratic flaws is not a rebuttal to anything. It’s an old dodge. What’s more, your examples are ridiculous because they do not represent actual Democratic positions.

          The positions I listed for the Tea Party are repeatedly advocated by Tea Party people and leaders. Since there is no official Tea Party, I have to go by that.

          • Look at my examples, Mark. Will you deny that the war on poverty is a Lefty idea? I was having a little fun, but from the items I mentioned, can you deny that any of them have not been a Democratic position?

            By contrast, please show me an example where a Tea Party leader has espoused “Health Care for Nobody”, “Guns for Everybody”, Criminalize Women’s Health Care”.

            The positions you listed for the Tea Party are repeatedly presented by people like you in the worst possible light to attempt to make them look bad. Of course, your loaded remarks and characterization are fine to make; any remarks I make about the loonier side of the Left is just me trying to find flaws, an old dodge.

            You didn’t address my point, though. You don’t deny that you ridicule and marginalize those with whom you disagree. You really think you are better than they are. But the sad fact is, your not. You’re a hateful, hurtful boor.

          • “repeatedly advocated by Tea Party people…”

            “…black presidents who they fear…”

            That, of course, is the biggest lie that Mark burps onto the keyboard. There are all kinds of examples where left-wingers point to an isolated picture of some bigot and thusly proclaim that those people represent the Tea Party. But these examples keep getting debunked.

            Mark has already shown the photo of Dale Robertson. He’s that moron who wore a Texas flag shirt held up a mis-spelled n-word protest sign. But Mark left out the fact that Robertson kept getting kicked out of every Tea Party event that he showed up at.

            Then there’s that Think Progress video which started with some fool proclaiming, “Yeah, I’m a racist, and I’m proud to be a racist.” But Think Progress got caught editing out the next two minutes of the video when a bunch of Tea Partiers showed up and told him to get lost.

            Here’s an offer, Mark. Since the Occupy movement was also leaderless, I will be generous and not point to the tiny handful of Occupy protestors who blamed all of our nation’s financial woes on the Jews. The Occupy movement was a disaster and had no internal discipline whatsoever – but was it chock full of anti-semitism? Nah.

            • Of course we mustn’t forget little details such as the Koch brothers funding much of the tea party’s creation and plague-like spreading over the nation. Oh, and then the same billionaire brothers funding in some cases and influencing in others for the discrediting and dismantling of the Occupy movement.

              Many things in today’s political landscape are NOT equal, and by that I mean that many things are argued and yelled about in order to say that they are equal, and yet they are most certainly not.

              “Our side my have crazies but so does yours!” isn’t just a VERY often used battle cry of the “right”, cons, tea party people, and like Mark said, its an old dodge.. but its also, very simply speaking, a totally fallacious tactic when arguing/discussing a point In other words, its a very well-known logical fallacy, and yet you and this John C character continuously attempt to use it against Mark. Not only that but you seem to think its a reason for you to feel arrogant and victorious, like childish schoolyard-bullies yelling “I know you are but what am I!?.. nyah! hahahaha you can’t win!”.

              That’s really what it comes down to, actually. The reason the “left”, the liberals, the empathetic side of the debate in this country is the CORRECT and RIGHTFUL side of things, is in large part because we take the more adult, mature stance on issues. It often is to our detriment that such is true, but its still true. We say “look at this evidence and please discuss things with us” and you say “FUCK YOU, I’m ALLOWED to be selfish, PRICK! This is a free fucking country, and my WHITE forefathers created it, so there! Plus I’m like 10 years older than you, pipsqueek!! And therefore I’m right, hah! Try and argue against that!!!!”

              This is more often than not the case when it comes to discussing things in this country. It makes me sigh, and it makes many liberals simply give up.. We’re the actual silent majority in this country, and if we all voted, there would be no contest. The “right” on the other hand has a pretty thorough grip on stirring shit up in a way that gets the many MANY crazies on your side up in arms, out to the voting booths.

              I honestly think there should be an extensive “cognitive-dissonance” test/assessment that you have to pass in order to vote. I assure you if such was the case conservatives would lose a VAST majority of their voting base.

            • @Wooded: You must be Mark’s relative. You couldn’t finish your first sentence without making a disparaging remark about those with whom you disagree. And so it goes…

              Your comment about how the Koch Bros. funded and influenced the discrediting and dismantling of the Occupy movement is ludicrous. No matter how much they may have spent, there was no better catalyst for the dismantling of “Occupy” than its own unfocused, leaderless, undisciplined existence. It wasn’t the Koch Bros. who funded someone to shit on cars, sexually harass and assault women or create an unhealthy environment in their tent city, all the while contributing nothing to the conversation beyond silly demands and dumb chants.

              If Occupy were a true movement, it wouldn’t have fallen apart so easily once law enforcement and city officials decided they had had enough of the nonsense.

              The problem with Lefties is that they believe themselves so superior to anyone who disagrees with them that they are oblivious to their own shortcomings. They ignore criticism and use terms like “it’s an old dodge”. It’s an old dodge to criticize? Of course it is, if you’re a conservative…how dare they??

              I can’t speak for anybody but myself, and I can tell you I don’t feel victorious because I’m trying to make a point. Everybody has an opinion, and I choose to voice mine as a counterbalance to the obsession Mark has with dissing conservatives.

              As for Lefties being the only adults in the room on any given debate, I will point out:
              1. Republicans are going to throw grandma off the cliff
              2. Republicans are waging a war on women
              3. Obamacare is the rgetest thing since sliced bread. Then when reality starts to kick in, you get this adult supporter’s comments ==> http://www.ijreview.com/2013/02/38827-donna-brazile-cant-believe-her-health-insurance-is-getting-so-expensive/

              If the Left is so interested in having a discussion, as adults do, why was Obamacare written without Republican input? As I recall, Pres. Obama stated with the utmost empathy, “We won!”, when Republicans met with him concerning the Health Care Bill. I think that was Pres. Obama’s way of saying, “F**K YOU, I’m ALLOWED to be selfish, PR*CK! This is a free f**king country…” And he wasn’t alone in gloating over his big win.

              And by the way, I expect all your Lefty friends to jump on here and admonish you, if not banish you from their midst, for even suggesting a policy that would disenfranchise voters!

      • Mark, you should appreciate the comments on “losing credibility”. That itself suggests you actually had credibility when launching into an attack on right wing ideology (or in this case Tea Party beliefs). I, of course, assign absolutely zero credibility to you in this arena. If you were telling us all about leftist ideology and/or the propaganda coming from Fox News, well, then it would be harder to deny you some level of credibility, but that’s not what you did here. You did, as you have many times before, tried to express some understanding of right wing beliefs – of course in the most offensive way possible. Not unlike I’ve done to you many times in the past. What’s most laughable is that when you do it, you sound just like Fox News – your most hated enemy and the driving force behind your writing in this blog.

        • A case of Stockholm Syndrome?

          • He is kind of held hostage by Fox News. But he really doesn’t like to be psychoanalyzed, he told me once.

            • Beat you…I think he’s told me that twice. Has anyone been told thrice?

  6. I find it impossible to assign “credibility” to anything Ablow has to say or to anyone who defends him or anything he espouses. I just find it incredulous that he could be taken seriously. Only an imbecile thinks he has anything of value to contribute.

    • I agree Ablow is an ass.

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