Keith Olbermann On Giving Donald Trump A Sanity Test – Results Are Astounding

Could Donald Trump pass a sanity test? That was the question Keith Olbermann set out to answer in a column in Vanity Fair.

Olbermann found a real sanity test with a perfect name, “The Hare Psychopathy Checklist.” Then he playfully administered the test to Trump and provided the answers on his behalf. It was done to make a serious point: that Trump is not just deceptive but dangerously deceptive.

“I had interviewed Trump as long ago as 1983 and always thought him a horse’s ass, but after running into him when we both worked at NBC, and then in the lobby of one of his apartment buildings in which I lived, I was stunned to encounter a quiet, succinct, seemingly sincere co-worker and (in essence) landlord. In one role he described himself as an anti-Bush, pro-Obama liberal; in the other, he urged me to contact him personally with any problems or suggestions about the building. Then he got on the campaign stage and, boom! He was America’s newest Mussolini Impersonator.”

Olbermann got a practicing psychotherapist to help him answer the 20 questions on the sanity test, each worth a maximum of two points. A score of 30 is the minimum for a possible psychopathy. Donald Trump’s score? 32 points.

Some of Trump’s high scorers included, “Impulsivity,” for, among other things, his childish attacks on Fox host Megyn Kelly, and “Callous/lack of empathy” for his self-congratulatory tweet in the wake of the Orlando shootings.

But Olbermann made another serious point: That the media should stop treating Trump merely as a spectacle.

“Our Trumperor’s New Clothes media rightly sees the latest Trump ‘event’—whatever it is this time—as one of the most unbelievable developments in American political history. But the simple mechanics of following, reporting, and writing the proverbial ‘new high in low’ every single day means that they could be missing one overriding truth about the health of the most remarkable presidential candidate since at least 1864.”

“And now, having slogged through this inventory of the Citizen Kane Storage Unit of bizarre presidential candidate conduct, go look at Twitter. Because in the time it took you to read this, he’s probably just done something new to raise his score.”

Watch Olbermann go through the test in the video below, via Vanity Fair. His Donald Trump impressions, alone, make it worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDMxCgQFl1s

Featured image is a screengrab from YouTube video.

 

Ellen Brodsky is a long time blogger for NewsHounds.us and a contributor to Crooks and Liars. She has also worked as a researcher for Brave New Films' landmark documentary, "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism" and "Iraq for Sale."