Booth's Mental health

[Gene C]

(05-15-2015 11:05 AM)Wild Bill Wrote:  It is so wonderful to find that John Wilkes Booth was some kind of a nut. It is even more refreshing to see that his has been psychoanalyzed by pseudo-professional mind readers. The problem is that Americans seem to prefer that all of their presidential assassins be insane--it allows us to avoid difficult questions about real motive for pop psychology. I refer you all to the article by James W. Clarke, "Conspiracies, Myths, and the Will to Believe: The importance of Content," In Gabor S. Boritt and Norman O. Furness, Historian's Lincoln: Pseudohistory, Psychohistory, and History (Urbana: U Ills. Press, 1988), 365-73.

Don't know if he was nuts, but he sure didn't think this through very well, from the impact the assassination had on the Confederate Army and government, political impact on the south after the war, and his escape from the Yankees, John Wilkes Booth just didn't have both oars in the water. Maybe that's why he let Davey row.