Thread: We’re In Denial, America, About Our President

We’re In Denial, America, About Our President

By Dr. Keith Ablow
Published October 26, 2010
| FoxNews.com

The greatest gift of my training in psychiatry has been the ability my mentors nurtured in me to really listen to what people say. This is harder than it sounds.

It took me years to overcome the natural tendency to gloss over the very important things people say—the ones that might trigger anxiety or sadness or anger if focused upon clearly or at length.

This avoidance of hearing messages that people convey is a very human reaction when what they are saying is almost too big to take to heart.

The same dynamic explains why people fail to recognize predators even in the face of much data that they are unsafe, why they fail to hear the desperation in the words of a loved one who later goes on to commit suicide, why they fail to internalize expressions of genuine (and boundless) love from another person and why they fail to follow-up with questions about true revelations another offers about his or her deepest feelings and most powerful experiences.

It is as if the mind and soul are fitted with shock absorbers triggered only by the biggest bumps in the road—a kind of onboard, on call denial—so that special focus is required to register them.

I believe this internal shock absorber has prevented many Americans from really listening to the most significant messages President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama have delivered.

One of these messages is that the Obamas are profoundly ambivalent about whether America and Americans have historically been a force for good or ill in the world. This is why the president has repeatedly apologized for America’s behavior, in a way that not only signals other nations that our leader is at best uncertain about our moral character, but may plant self-doubt about our decency in own population.

It is why the first lady honestly stated during the campaign that "for the first time in my adult lifetime" she was proud of her country.

It is why the president would remain in a church where the pastor has been quoted as saying, “God damn, America!â€

Simply put, anti-American,anti-capitalism,anti-Christian, not hard to understand at all.