Not crazy, not funny

Re “One flew over the White House,” Opinion, Oct. 25

Rosa Brooks implies that the Bush administration and its leaders are the psychotics, but are they any crazier than those she would conciliate with?

I think I’ll trust our current leadership before I’ll trust the leadership of others. Brooks should live abroad and find out how often those other leaders were and are duplicitous. Even at their worst, our leaders are far better. If she wants to talk about psychoses, Brooks should explore or visit Malaysia, China, India, Israel, the Palestinian territories or Darfur. Given such a trip, I think she’d begin to realize there are far more “psychotic” leaders than President Bush.

Ronald Jones

Peoria, Ill.

--

Thanks to Brooks and her psychoanalysis of the Bush-Cheney administration, at last I see the light. And I can even feel some compassion. Those of us who are trying to understand or rationalize away reasons for man’s inhumanity to man are offered a mitigating factor for the administration’s misadventures, something we can live with -- the loose-screw excuse.

Carol Nahin

Palm Desert

--

I can’t figure out what offends me more about Brooks’ column: the completely baseless postulation that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are insane, or the fact that her lame attempt at satire falls flatter than pancake uranium.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad comes to the U.S. and says there are no gays in Iran, rambles on like a psych-ward guest, tells his people to wait for the hidden Imam and wants to wipe Israel from the map, and Brooks calls Bush crazy? Brooks says the right plays off our fears, yet her column does exactly that. The difference is that our fears are tangible; hers, just a lame joke. Brooks should stick to drama; that’s what Bush haters are good at.

Michael T. McCarthy

Los Angeles

--

Brooks may be on to something when she says, “The goal: Get Bush and Cheney committed to an appropriate inpatient facility,” like psychotics who need treatment.

Our “leaders” are perhaps like your garden-variety arsonists, for whom the thrill of starting fires (or wars) and the prospect that they will be seen as heroes by trying to put them out pushes them to invade Iraq and to consider the same with Iran.

Barry Rathner

Los Angeles

--

Brooks’ hysterical rants about Bush speak volumes about Brooks and very little about Bush, regardless of one’s political viewpoint of the world. Those who ignore the fact that Brooks long ago “lost it” have their own screws loose.

With respect to fueling “extremist movements,” all Brooks needs to do is glance at a mirror.

Kip Dellinger

West Los Angeles