This Friday: The slender, handsome young man wrung his large hands and took his customary place on the leather-upholstered chaise longue. In his armchair, Dr. Flugelmeijer peered into his notebook. “A good week?” he asked.
Sen. Obama stared at the ceiling, eyes wide open and not blinking. He worried a paper tissue, twisting it back and forth. You didn’t need to be a strict Freudian to recognize a bad sign. “Same problem?” asked the psychiatrist.
The senator gulped silently, like a fish on a pier, until he found his words. “I believe in change!” he blurted. “Dr. Flugelmeijer! I really, really believe in change!”
The shrink smiled benevolently. “I thought we’d been through that before, Barack. Change is part of life. It is normal. And you can call me Rudi.”
“Bbbbbbut,” stammered the patient, “I believe that women should have a voice and be respected. The Republicans won’t let that happen. They simply won’t!”
Dr. Flugelmeijer frowned thoughtfully: “This will come as a surprise to Condi Rice, when she comes for her appointment at three.”
The patient continued: “Next week’s the convention! My advisers say that the only way that I can give women a voice is by making my wife shut up.” The psychiatrist tilted his head. “The only way I can make women more involved after the campaign is by locking Michelle in the cupboard during the campaign. I don’t like it.”
“It might not go over too well with Michelle, either,” mused the doctor.
“My advisers are afraid that she might go to the grocery store and forget to wear her American flag pin. Or say something that gets taken out of context. Or go to a restaurant and order Belgian endive. Vegetables, that’s what finished Dukakis.”
“They’ve even found a former doctor from Romania who will diagnose her with a rare, four-month strain of laryngitis,” he continued, “and a defrocked Canadian dentist who will wire her jaws shut. That way she can still smile and wave. He performed the same operation on Pat Nixon and Rosalynn Carter.”
“And how do you feel about this?” The shrink’s question was nearly the only tool in his professional shed.
“Awful,” groaned the candidate. “And I really, really care about Muslims, just like all religious minorities! But my advisers won’t let Muslims near me. They kick little Muslim girls off the stage. They say one glimpse of a schoolgirl wearing a parachute and Middle Americans are gonna start cleaning their shotguns.”
“You can call me Rudi,” the shrink repeated. “Barack, this is what we call cognitive dissonance, a feeling of stress caused by contradictory ideas or actions.”
“Well, they say toe the line or I won’t get elected,” complained the senator. “They tell me to stand up for peace in the Middle East while promising carte blanche to the Israeli right wing. They want me to cut taxes on Monday and Wednesday and raise taxes on Tuesday and Thursday.
“They want me to support free trade that employs and feeds the world’s poor, while opposing it because blue collar Americans maxed out their credit cards and can’t afford a tank of gas. What can I do? They want me to talk at the convention!”
The psychiatrist smiled again. “Barack, we’ve been through this before. I thought we’d agreed that you’d just promise change, without specifying, because some change is inevitable. Then no matter what happens, you told the truth.”
The candidate gulped a few times and forced a weak smile. The doctor continued: “OK, and if you want we can raise your dosages.”
S.J. Masty is a former Washington, D.C., speechwriter now based in London as an international communication adviser.
