Is Bushie a "pretty smart cookie"?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

With his track record of falling for scams...lean no.

[Maxwell]

He's not a pretty smart cookie, much less a pretty smart person.

[IceSpear]

Cookies cause grade 15 headaches.

[WalterMitty]

the scary part is that he is smarter and more educated than the average ohlahoman.

bushie makes terrible decisions.  he needs professional help.

[Torie]

He's smart, but he's spoiled, with a heck of a lot of hangups. Being smart is not a sufficient condition in and of itself to a "successful" life. Who knew?

[Lief 🗽]

If he's any kind of food, it would be a bacon cheeseburger, not a cookie.

[memphis]

He's obviously not. After all these seasons of Update, I don't know why anybody would pretend that he is.  But he can't help being dimmer than average bear. He didn't choose it.  Credit for that goes to God and, of course, the parenting skills of Mama and Papa Bushie. Unfortunately, the American economy is not set up in such a manner that people like him can live with much dignity. I suppose you can fault him for being unwilling to accept his lot in life and his responsibilities too, by just getting a menial job.

[Flake]

I think Bushie is smart, I really do, but I feel his decisions are made impulsively and recklessly, and he really needs to recognize that.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

He's smart enough to avoid any responsibility and make the others do everything for him. Whether his lifestyle itself is "smart", that's another story.

[Maxwell]

the scary part is that he is smarter and more educated than the average ohlahoman.

bushie makes terrible decisions.  he needs professional help.

lol k

If you're going to chastise an entire group of people for being unintelligent, at least be able to spell.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Anyone except Bushie voting yes is trolling.

[Mr. Morden]

I think the minimum requirement for "pretty smart cookie" should be "can tell whether a dog is male or female after living with it for several weeks".  Somehow both Bushie and his parents failed that test.

[Paul Kemp]

A literal dunce.

[Simfan34]

He is an incompetent slob who essentially cannot do anything. So obviously not. He needs to be hit with sticks, the level of delusion is blood-boiling.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Bushie is probably of slightly above-average intelligence but almost all elements of his psyche other than raw intelligence, including many of the kinds of 'smartness' that are actually important, are disordered in some flagrant way or other, all of which he refuses to do anything about. So no.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

He's bright enough to attempt cunning. But has a totally misplaced sense of his own abilities, talents or likely future

If anything his sense of his intelligence, is probably his Achilles' Heel. He thinks he's brighter than most, so thinks the jobs he's actually suitable for are beneath him and those he wants are way way over his head. Mix that in with his utter desperation to be "respectable" ... you see how end up where we are.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Ummm... he's clearly has something that begins with 'a' and ends with 'm'. I don't see how anyone can see otherwise and he's being a fool for not trying to seek medical help about it.

[Mr. Morden]

Ummm... he's clearly has something that begins with 'a' and ends with 'm'.

Autodidactism?  That would explain how he became an expert on the use of his CADD software without the formal instruction.

[politicus]

Ummm... he's clearly has something that begins with 'a' and ends with 'm'. I don't see how anyone can see otherwise and he's being a fool for not trying to seek medical help about it.

Why not say the actual word autism?

[Indy Texas]

Ummm... he's clearly has something that begins with 'a' and ends with 'm'. I don't see how anyone can see otherwise and he's being a fool for not trying to seek medical help about it.

As much as Bushie goes to church, you think he has atheism?

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Ameriscam, Gully?  Don't be so dainty.......spell it out big guy.

[memphis]

So far the Update psychiatrists have diagnosed autism, obsessive compulsive disorder, the bipolar, obsessive–compulsive personality disorder, attention deficit disorder, and histrionic personality disorder. Am I forgetting any?

[Lurker]

Ummm... he's clearly has something that begins with 'a' and ends with 'm'. I don't see how anyone can see otherwise and he's being a fool for not trying to seek medical help about it.

Surprising that you want to give him a diagnosis. Haven't you been arguing that autism (and lots of other psychological disorders) are massively overdiagnosed?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Ameriscam, Gully?  Don't be so dainty.......spell it out big guy.

Ummm... he's clearly has something that begins with 'a' and ends with 'm'.

Autodidactism?  That would explain how he became an expert on the use of his CADD software without the formal instruction.

Oh do f-ck off, I thought your defense for your favourite freak-show was that a) this was a place to give Bushie advice (which is hilarious as most advice here is terrible) and b) that it 'provided insight into Middle America blah blah' (which is, if isn't obvious by now, a blatant LIE, transparently false and ridiculous. Bushie is not representative of anything in America, ffs he's barely employable). I'm actually trying to suggest root causes to problems and potential solutions and of course I get nothing but withering sneers for a 50+ year old man whose hobbies include misogyny and watching a fat mentally disabled slowly kill himself and an Australian concern troll whose confuses mocking sarcasm with meaningful content. Granted that I don't expect much sympathy with atlas knowledge of mental health being close to atlas knowledge of nutrition ("You've got to cut the carbs, Bushie") but I would like you remove your sanctimonious pretense that update isn't about anything other than mockery, mockery over the transparently mentally disabled.

Sorry to interrupt your sneering at this freak show by trying to establish some facts, or at least meaningful hypothesis. You can get back to your smug sense of superiority now. You've clearly earned it.

So far the Update psychiatrists have diagnosed autism, obsessive compulsive disorder, the bipolar, obsessive–compulsive personality disorder, attention deficit disorder, and histrionic personality disorder. Am I forgetting any?

So you prefer your folk psychological meanderings... in the name of what may I ask. "Bushie needs to work harder", "Bushie needs to stop being so lazy", "Bushie needs to stop watching so much TV" ad nauseum... without wondering why indeed that might be the case. Instead various character defects that if he worked hard enough he could overcome. And probably there's some truth in that, but it also ignores trying to understand the person as he actually is, not as we wish to be.

Anyway as I've repeated many times, I think Bushie should see an psychiatrist - an actual professional. My diagnosis is, of course, premature but I don't think it unreasonable, given my knowledge of experience of people with that condition, I'd say it's quite likely that he does indeed have it and there have been many giveaways here that that indeed is the case. What Bushie doesn't need is further exhibitionism where various amused and sneering gawkers give him 'advice' based on variously contrived narratives that come merely from cultural prejudice. It's a good thing he ignores you all - because he'd be in an even worse state if he didn't.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Ummm... he's clearly has something that begins with 'a' and ends with 'm'. I don't see how anyone can see otherwise and he's being a fool for not trying to seek medical help about it.

Surprising that you want to give him a diagnosis. Haven't you been arguing that autism (and lots of other psychological disorders) are massively overdiagnosed?

I take back some of my earlier anti-psych views having reviewed some of the evidence more (Isn't that what we all do, right?) although there is clearly overdiagnosis of psychiatric conditions in certain areas, or rather confused diagnosis because of the tendency of psychiatric categories to seep into each other thus it is difficult in many cases to define where 'ASD' begins and 'ADHD' ends. Many sufferers from such clearly defined mental conditions or abnormalities have more than one so it's frequently very difficult to know how to treat such a thing when the nosology is somewhat of a makeshift structure (and then there is the separate issue of whether psychiatric medicine actually works than a placebo or not but that's a different matter. The same holds true btw for the various forms of talk therapy).

These issues of course apply to Bushie. Here though I'm using a term that people would understand clearly and unambigiously (it's why we need a nosology) because I think it is urgent in Bushie's case if he wants to stop on the path towards a very early death. Unfortunately I see no evidence that Bushie is even aware that that is where he is heading which part of the reason why I think he needs outside assistance. Bushie is hardly alone in being a person who trusts himself too much.