There's a great article on truthout.org by a psychiatrist that explains how screwed up and dangerous George W. Bush really is.
Bush overcompensated for his deep feelings of inadequacy by becoming a domineering bully. His decision making is dangerously flawed, as the whole world can now see, and is predictably getting worse as he feels backed into a corner by his bad decisions.
(More on the flip ...)
The writer, Dr. Briggs, paints a sad picture of W's family dynamic:
... beneath the son-father struggle lies a far more significant issue for Bush - a question about his own competence, adequacy and autonomy as a human being.
So Bush has to constantly try to assert his independence from his father or anyone else giving him advice. And then, there's his mother ...
Bush's mother, Barbara (sarcastic, mean, disciplinarian, always with an acid-tongued retort), is probably the model for another major defense Bush deploys to defend himself against feelings of inadequacy... A bully covers insecurity with bluster and intimidation so that others won't find an opening to see how weak he feels...
Bush appears to be what is called an emotional bully. An emotional bully gains control using sarcasm, teasing, mocking, name calling, threatening, ignoring, lying, or angering the other and forcing him to back down. Bush administration insider accounts describe this sort of behavior from the president.
Dr. Briggs suggests that many of Bush's closest aides are bullied into submission and could even be suffering from the Stockholm syndrome where hostages and battered spouses come to identify with and defend their abuser.
He's bullied us, too. We don't dare to really confront the scale of his incompetent behavior, because then we would have to face what it means to have such an incompetent and psychologically disabled decision-maker as our president.
The danger comes as the consequences of Bush's disasterous decisions come back to haunt him.
At this point, the president seems to have entered a place in his psyche where he is discounting all external criticism and unpopularity, and fixing stubbornly on his illusion of vindication, because he's still "The Decider," who can just keep deciding until he gets to success. It's hard not to feel something heroic in this position - but it's a recipe for bad, if not catastrophic, decisions.