Are politicians, as a group, insane?

Thought for the day: the desire to be a politician is itself a sign of mental illness.

I was thinking about this on the way home from breakfast. So what do I find, linked at Instapundit[*1] ? This Esquire[*2] article:

On January 20, Barack Obama became president of a deranged nation. He did so apparently taking no notice of the fact that a good portion of the country, a country that otherwise repeatedly voiced its support for him in poll after poll after poll, continued to be completely out of its mind. He was calm and reasoned, and he spoke in measured tones about the challenges he and the nation were facing. And then he seemed to go manic on us.

I wonder though, if the impulse which sends individuals to seek political power of any kind might not be some kind of mental disorder.

A cheerful though, is it not? This might be why I have the general opinion that anybody who wants to be President probably shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near Washington, D.C., let alone the Oval Office.

Update: Dr. Helen[*3] (the wife of Instapundit, linked above) graciously and quickly answered an e-mail I sent her on this subject, and I think the thrust of her reply was that “insane” is probably too strong. She notes that (many but perhaps not all) politicians are prone to narcissism–and for whatever reason, the rest of us are prone to vote for narcissists. So perhaps I should be asking “Are politicians, as a group, mentally ill” instead, as narcissism is a recognized mental illness[*4] .