Calling 69-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin “erratic,” 67-year-old former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice thinks Putin has gone over the deep end from her past contacts with the Russian leader. Growing numbers of Western officials seem fixated on Putin’s mental health after he invaded Ukraine Feb. 24, claiming his behavior looked irrational. Well it’s easy to make the case the war with a neighbor is irrational, obscuring the real issue that a Russian and Ukrainian peace delegation desperately seek to end the current hostilities. But the fixation on Putin’s mental health seems strangely reminiscent when 75-year-old former President Donald Trump was in office. How much air-time was spent on Trump’s mental health by the New York Times and Washington Post, especially reporter Maggie Haberman, whose writing often portrayed Trump as “unhinged.”
Separating out political hits from anything factual isn’t easy in a media prone toward mobbing, where a Democrat-friendly press likes to hit below the belt, often accusing political opponents of mental illness. While the media now fixates on Putin, they certainly spent years making the case that Trump should be removed under the 25th Amendment because of his mental health. “I met with him many times, and this is different Putin,” Rice told Fox News. “He was always calculating and cold, but this is different. He seems erratic. There is an every deepening delusional rendering of history,” Rice said. Rice hasn’t met with Putin in over 15 years, yet someone thinks she’s an expert on his current mental state. ‘I personally think he’s unhinged,” said 82-year-old former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Clapper made the same statements about Trump.
Going to war is an insane choice to the extent that dialogue and negotiation could have resulted in a different outcome. Putin warned 79-year-oldj President Joe Biden Dec. 24, 2021, telling him that if his legally binding security guarantees weren’t heeded, he would use “retaliatory military-technical measures,” to resolve the issue of Russian national security. Biden ignored Putin’s requests for security guarantees, telling him they were “non-starters,” meaning they were not realistic. So when Rice, Clapper and other fake mental health experts speculate about Putin’s mental state there’s plenty of alternative explanations why he decided to invade Ukraine. Putin asked for direct talks with the U.S. on new security arrangement but was rebuffed by Biden. Disparaging statements about Putin’s mental health were no different that the attacks made on Trump for his four years in office.
When it comes to Rice, she’s the same person who swore on a stack of bibles that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear and biological weapons of mass destruction. Rice pushed hard for war in 2002-2003, all based on fake intel from a cherry picked Pentagon office with Bush-appointed neocons. Rice has zero credibility on any subject, let alone playing armchair psychiatrist. When it comes to Clapper, he’s the same person who repeatedly said the Trump had close ties to the Kremlin that threatened U.S. national security. Like Rice, he just made up things for political reasons, having no facts about Trump’s mental health or anything else. Clapper was involved in the Obama White House conspiracy, currently under investigation by Special Counsel John Durhan,to spy on ‘Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and his presidency. So when Clapper likes to opine, like Rice, he has zero credibility.
Remarking about domestic leaders’ mental health issues is a favorite of the fake news where a group of mental health professionals led by Yale University Dr. Bany X. Lee, claimed in 2016 that Trump was unfit for president because of his mental health status. Lee broke her profession’s Goldwater Rule, referring to psychiatrists using their professional status to tank the 1964 presidential campaign of GOP nominee Sen. Barry Goldwater. Generations of psychiatrists adhered to the ethical rule until Bandy used her professional opinion to sink Trump’s 2016 campaign. So when you hear politically biased government officials talk about opponents’ mental health issues, there zero merit to the analysis. “Putin is absolutely not crazy. All this talk calling him crazy, it means we’re still not taking Putin seriously or understanding him,” said Rebekah Koffer, former DIA officer.
Questions about Putin’s mental health have no practical value, other than trying to explain his current actions, including the invasion of Ukraine. Instead of wild speculation, the fake news would do the public a service for telling what led up to the invasion. Biden refused to talk, discuss or negotiate an acceptable security arrangement involving Ukraine and other Eastern European countries. Watching the U.S. and NATO supply Ukraine with lethal weapons violated Putin’s red lines and prompted him to take action. Whether he can be pulled back from the war is anyone’s guess. Intel analysts need to focus on concrete facts, not wild speculation involving mental health. Putin told Biden Dec. 24, if his legally-binding security requests were ignored, he would be forced to take “retaliatory military-technical measures” to protect Russian national security. Biden knew the risks and called Putin’s bluff.
