Politicians: They're All Crazy

It’s no wonder George W. Bush and Tony Blair messed up in Iraq: They were crazy. At least that’s ex-British politician David Owen’s belief. In his new book, In Sickness and in Power, the ex-doctor explores the health of leaders throughout time. Bush and Blair were afflicted with “Hubris Syndrome,” a medical condition Owen invented to describe the power-mad.

John F. Kennedy, meanwhile, was doing fine until he began injecting diluted cocaine into his back muscles five times a day. Owen says he found the drug use in Kennedy’s medical history. “I couldn’t understand how this man, who handled the Cuban missile crisis so impressively… could have made such a monumental mess of the Bay of Pigs,” he said. (More mental illness stories.)