Unfortunately for America’s economy and well-being, the Administration appears to consider the White House a giant stage on which to bring its production of 'Sybil' before a domestic and world audience.

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Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder): 

A rare condition in which a person has two or more separate personalities.  The person often does not know that the other personalities exist, and cannot recall events that occur when the other personalities are active. 

After just one year in office, the Obama Administration’s constantly contradictory policies and pronouncements suggest that its proverbial left hand remains oblivious to what its right hand is doing. 

Unfortunately for America’s economy and well-being, the Administration thus appears to consider the White House a giant stage on which to bring its production of Sybil before a domestic and world audience. 

Sybil, of course, refers to Flora Rheta Schreiber’s 1973 book describing psychologist Cornelia Wilbur’s treatment of pseudonymous Sybil Dorsett, who suffered from multiple personality disorder.  The book was made even more famous by its television and film productions in 1976 and 2007.  Today, the term “Sybil” commonly refers to someone who exhibits bizarre, fractured and self-defeating behavior. 

Moving from popular lexicon to official diagnostic criteria, the analogy appears increasingly and frighteningly apt. 

According to the official psychiatric Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder-IV (DMS-IV), four criteria indicate someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID): 

- The presence of two or more distinct “identities or personality states;” 
- At least two personalities must take control of the person’s identity on a regular basis; 
- Exhibits aspects of amnesia, that is, the person forgets routine personal information;  and 
- The condition must not have been caused by “direct physiological effects,” such as drug abuse or head trauma. 

Whether anyone within the Obama Administration has at some point suffered “head trauma” is unclear, although Obama himself has famously confessed in one of his several self-congratulatory autobiographies to past drug abuse in the form of “blow,” or cocaine. 

Momentarily setting aside such “direct physiological effects,” however, America this week witnessed a perfect example of “aspects of amnesia, that is, the person forgets routine personal information.”  Namely, we were treated to the spectacle of Obama blatantly disregarding a promise that he made before live television cameras on multiple occasions during his presidential campaign that health care negotiations would be televised on C-SPAN. 

Ignoring this, ObamaCare negotiations continued this week – behind locked doors. 

To hear the White House, along with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, suggest that ongoing discussions between Senate and House members to force-feed healthcare legislation to the unwilling American people were in any manner “open,” however, was to witness a present-day replay of Sybil’s dementia. 

Sadly, Obama’s broken promise to ensure televised healthcare negotiations is just the latest example of this emerging multiple personality disorder. 

At the same time that his chief economic advisor Christina Romer was appearing on ABC’s This Week earnestly promising federal efforts to promote employment growth, for instance, the Obama Administration continued to advocate a multitude of job-destroying new laws.  From a massive healthcare bill that will increase businesses’ cost of employment, to carbon cap-and-tax legislation that will muddy America’s manufacturing climate and drive jobs overseas, to union card-check legislation that will menace employers at the behest of Big Labor executives, to a third “stimulus” package that will remove dollars from the private sector, lead to higher taxes and more deficit spending, the White House’s behavior simply does not match its professed goals. 

Meanwhile, Obama’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) professes a goal of ubiquitous broadband expansion and continued Internet growth.  Simultaneously, however, the FCC is currently proposing toxic “Net Neutrality” regulations, which would saddle the relatively thriving Internet sector with unnecessary regulations that benefit powerful corporate interests such as Google.  American consumers and tech sector employers will ultimately pay the cost. 

As a result, even former cheerleaders like California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger are beginning to revolt.  After previously singing the praises of ObamaCare, for example, Schwarzenegger is now admonishing California’s House and Senate delegation to reject it unless they can do the impossible and secure the same “Cornhusker Kickback” that Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson was able to achieve.  Other state leaders such as New York Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch are raising legal and rhetorical opposition to Obama’s onslaught of federal mandates upon states, because those mandates will continue to burden state budgets long after the federal matching funds expire. 

In other words, the Obama Administration’s production of Sybil has met an unwelcoming audience even among its presumed supporters. 

Here’s an idea that the Obama Administration might consider if it truly wants to heal our national woes:  stop the Sybil multiple-personality act, get out of the way and stop making things worse.