Politics as pathology

From Charles Platt’s “The Profits of Fear” (August 2005):

It seems to me axiomatic that most primary actors on the global stage are disturbed people, because an obsessive lust for power is itself a pathology, and in a competition among thousands or millions of power seekers, only the most pathological are likely to win. …

I think Bush understood very clearly a fundamental fact of politics: Our leaders are less valuable to us at times when we feel more secure.