According to the Random House Dictionary, the term 'cognitive dissonance' means 'anxiety that results from simultaneously holding contradictory or otherwise incompatible attitudes and beliefs.' Cognitive dissonance is also a medical term meaning 'psychological conflict resulting from simultaneously held incongruous beliefs and attitudes,' according to Merriam Webster's Medical Dictionary.
Are Barack Obama's blatant contradictions, often occurring within the same sentence, indicative of cognitive dissonance?
Only a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist could make such a diagnosis from a medical standpoint. But as an observable phenomenon in one's speech and attitudes--apart from any attempt to make a medical diagnosis--one could reasonably conclude that the President regularly engages in such a disconnect.
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