From The New York Times, 7/6/03:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/06DOWD.html

Ritalin for America

By MAUREEN DOWD


WASHINGTON

I went online to take "Dr. Grohol's Psych Central Adult A.D.D. Quiz."

The questionnaire asked if "My moods have high and lows."

Well, yes.

It asked if "I am distressed by the disorganized way my brain works."
You bet.

Reading over the questions, I realized America has A.A.D.D.

The country has always had a pinball attention span, even before the
Internet and cable TV accelerated it.

The New Republic recently dubbed this "historical attention deficit
disorder," when a country gets distracted from focusing on any one
place for very long.

Our scattered consciousness is the reason we're so bad at empire, too
impatient to hang around hot climes trying to force cold natives to
like us.

Let's apply the A.A.D.D. quiz to our fidgety president and his foreign
policy team:


"I find my mind wandering from tasks that are uninteresting or
difficult."

(Like nation building, which we said we'd never do but are muddling
through now, with no coherent strategy, in Iraq, Afghanistan and the
Middle East, and soon in Liberia.)


"I say things without thinking and later regret having said them."

(Such as declaring we have "prevailed" in Iraq two months before the
commander there admits, "We're still at war." Or bubbling about the
statue of Saddam falling and then months later posting a $25 million
bounty on the real Saddam's head. Or saying Saddam had W.M.D.'s that
posed an imminent threat to us and then failing to find a single
warhead. Or saying we'd already found the weapons when all we'd found
was some trashed trailer. Or saying we'd get Osama "dead or alive" and
Al Qaeda was "on the run.")


"I make quick decisions without thinking enough about their possible
bad results."

(Such as how our troops will be targets in hostile, dangerous
territory, stuck there for years sorting out tribal and sectarian
warfare.)


"I have a quick temper, a short fuse."

(Like the president, taunting the Iraqi militants, saying, "Bring 'em
on." Shouldn't that sort of trash talking be reserved for football and
Schwarzenegger sequels?


"I have trouble planning in what order to do a series of tasks or
activities."

(Such as threatening to rumble with North Korea and Iran while we're
still prone to stumble in Afghanistan and Iraq.)


"In group activities it is hard for me to wait my turn."

(Why wait for the pansy allies, even if you'll need their help after?)


"I usually work on more than one project at a time, and fail to finish
many of them."

(Yes. Al Qaeda is recrudescing. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is coming
back, warlords rule and the vice and virtue police are at it again.
Iran and North Korea are defying us. Saddam is still lurking, even as
we struggle in Iraq to get the lights on, the oil industry up and the
violence down. We say everything is O.K. while the senators who went
to Iraq last week say we're stretched thin in the face of more and
more attacks by Saddam loyalists.)


Yep.

These guys definitely have E.A.D.D. --- Empire Attention Deficit
Disorder.

__________________________________________________ _

Harry






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