Casual
Carlson, Tucker
Casual Dr. Cummings Psychoanalyzes Me Intellectuals love to talk about what an emotional medium television is, but it’s hard to know exactly what they mean until you meet people who watch a...
...The other day, she reappeared...
...Cummings lurking in the second paragraph of a David Broder column in the Washington Post...
...Not that I really believed her...
...Pat Cummings, Ph.D.,” I soon learned, was both a real psychologist and a Perot volunteer...
...So I called her...
...May I quote you on that...
...What if I’d taken her diagnosis to heart and had myself committed...
...Understated, even...
...During the program I made the point—in a subtle way, I thought—that Perot might not be all there, a few tacos short of a combo platter perhaps...
...And, she explained, not crazy in a good way...
...This time she was staring at me from a monitor in a television studio where I’d shown up to talk about Ross Perot again...
...As she explained it, I was “a person who lacks conscience and an ability to interact in a responsible and ethical way in this society...
...Over breakfast last week, I was amazed to find Dr...
...It was a self-appointed position— nobody else wanted to assume it—but in its own way a rewarding one...
...One of my first jobs in Washington had been as the Nut Mail Editor of a quarterly magazine...
...I began to doubt it, and before long Pat Cummings left my thoughts entirely...
...One stood out as particularly enraged— I could almost feel the woman shaking with fury as she spoke...
...Identified as a “clinical psychologist and independent candidate for the Maryland legislature,” Cummings was quoted extensively claiming that “Ross Perot is not crazy...
...she demanded, sounding a shade less confident...
...Who did I think I was...
...At the time, it didn’t seem like an outrageous thing to say...
...Well, I said, since you’re a psychologist, you’ll definitely want to get some treatment for that anger problem of yours...
...Could the genuine psychologist on television really have been the same person who called to scream at me...
...In fact,” she assured Broder’s readers, “he could be included in a study of exceptionally healthy individuals...
...On-air discussion that night never touched on our previous chat, and though I wanted to reminisce, Dr...
...I finally understood one day this March when I went on a political show to discuss Ross Perot...
...So, it turned out, had she...
...That’s how she knew I was crazy...
...Others didn’t agree...
...How did she know...
...I decided to return it, if only for nostalgic reasons...
...No actual licensed Mental Health Professional would call a total stranger “crazy...
...For once, an accurate diagnosis...
...She not only confirmed her identity but also her diagnosis of me: still crazy after all these months...
...Evil, really...
...No, the more I thought about it, the less I believed her...
...Only, as a cameraman explained, she had refused to share a set with me and so was doing the interview by remote from another studio upstairs in the building...
...Cummings must have slipped out the back door because I never saw her again...
...Tucker Carlson cc: Maryland Board of Examiners of Psychologists...
...she wanted to know, and where did I get off saying something like that, and just how did I get to be such a repulsive, reprehensible person...
...Are you going to now try to cost me my license...
...Cummings was starting to depress me...
...Sounded like the same woman to me...
...Four days later, I ran into Pat Cummings again...
...Cummings Psychoanalyzes Me Intellectuals love to talk about what an emotional medium television is, but it’s hard to know exactly what they mean until you meet people who watch a lot of it...
...Pretending to be a shrink must be the 90s version of a Napoleon complex...
...You say Ross Perot is crazy...
...I took calls and answered letters from people upset over our editorial stands: conspiracy wackos, Libertarians, men with strange accents ranting about obscure ethnic conflicts (“I can assure you that the Kazakh people will not abide this blood libel . . . ”), and so obsessively on...
...By the time I got back to my office there were a number of angry messages on my machine...
...Months went by and my memory started to fog...
...Interesting, I said...
...Bad crazy: delusional, vicious, sociopathic...
...I made a game attempt at answering, but she cut me off...
...After a year and a half as NME, I thought I knew all about outraged callers...
...I’m a psychologist...
...So I called the woman back...
...Even over the phone line, I thought I could hear her mind begin to imagine the consequences: a trip to the professional review board, charges of irresponsible conduct, punishment...
...Still, I had to be sure...
...A real psychologist wouldn’t talk that way...
...Then I signed off...
...Her name was Pat Cummings, and she claimed to have a practice in suburban Maryland...
...Just in case I didn’t understand the textbook definition, she reduced it to layman’s terms: “Look, I have no respect for you...
...Talking to Dr...
...she screamed...
...She started yelling immediately...
...You’re crazy...
...I think that you are a person of very low character...
Vol. 1 • September 1996 • No. 49
