Psychopaths are running the country

I've been reading "Without Conscience," a book written in 1993 by psychologist Robert Hare, who created the Psychopathy Checklist to identify the 20% of prison inmates who are psychopaths. It's a well-written, intelligent book. The Checklist itself is not in the book; presumably that would make it too easy for psychopaths to manipulate whoever gave them the test.

It appears that many characteristics of psychopaths are desirable if one is to succeed in climbing the corporate ladder: egocentricity, grandiosity, ruthlessness, lack of empathy, good manipulative skills, lying and deceitfulness, and a generally predatory nature. Relatively few pp commit violent crimes; most of them are con men and petty criminals of various kinds. Some (like Bernie Madoff) successfully bilk hundreds of people out of their life savings, causing catastrophic suffering. From what I observe, a good number of American politicians and Wall Street banksters are definitely psychopaths.

More later, since I have to listen to Randi Rhodes' take on the current group of Republican psychopaths in Congress who are holding the debt ceiling legislation hostage.
Another characteristic: When you are caught commiting a crime, blame everyone else!