One might consider the way Bush “returns” or modulates public affect, or simply what he elicits in his adoring public — a sense of anger, rage, perceived injustice. He has certainly fanned the flames since 9-11.

And it might be useful to consider the relationship between president and public along the lines of an analogy between parts of the personality ….

Finally, if one were to evaluate the country as if it were a personality, might one call it envious? Certainly the paranoia is there (as in Iraqi WMD’s and the fantastic idea that they would magically appear on American soil, borne by Al Qaeda). And consider the frequent description of the enemy as “nihilist” or “islamo-fascist.” I can’t ignore the irony that a country rife with such moral laxity, such “freedom,” is bent on “spreading” it to extremely culturally conservative, traditional societies — the very paradigm of what nihilism is not! And all in the name of conservative moral values. Isn’t there envy there? Internally, conservatives reminisce about the good-old-days, when women knew their place, made dinner, and kept their legs closed; externally, the living examples of this nostalgia evoke fury — and of course, the fury and destructiveness of the narcissist is directed towards precisely the quality he would possess, at least in greater degree than anyone else. Sometimes I think it is the genuineness of Muslim faith that evokes the most rage in a fallen-Christian nation where some struggle to remember what faith really is.