Anything you don’t do, I can do better…

…I can do anything and blame it on you.

David Neiwert revisits one of his (and my) favorite topics with The Projection Strategy, which examines once again conservatives’ proclivity toward projection upon their ideological opponents their own traits and behaviors with the express purpose of providing themselves “epistemological cover.” In other words, mendaciously accusing liberals, for instance, of constantly spewing vile rhetoric as justification for doing precisely that themselves.

I direct you to Neiwert’s associated piece on projection by way of introduction to this stunning profile (h/t C&L) of Dr. James Dobson, leader of Focus on the Family and Christian Supremacist powerhouse. The conservative kingpin is also a best-selling author of books on marriage and child-rearing, like Dare to Discipline, which includes helpful explanations of Narcotic Slang, recommends A Moment for Mom, delineates how to Teach Respect and Responsibility to Children, and cautions against the dangers of pot, among its endorsements of spanking and strict authoritarianism. One of Dobson’s unique gifts is to mask the advocacy of extremist family structures, including child abuse and male dominion, in vaguely reasonable-sounding advice. His cited motivation is, natch, the decay of society instigated by godless, deviant liberals, who don’t know how to control themselves.

But a tour through Dobson’s past reveals a man whose actions would certainly seem unfamiliar (to be generous) to most people—and a person patently incapable of learning from his own mistakes.

Once, as Dobson writes in The New Strong-Willed Child, [he] provoked a fight between a pug bulldog and a “sweet, passive Scottie named Baby” by throwing a tennis ball toward Baby: “The bulldog went straight for Baby’s throat and hung on. It was an awful scene. Neighbors came running from everywhere as the Scottie screamed in terror. It took ten minutes and a garden hose for the adults to pry loose the bulldog’s grip. By then Baby was almost dead. He spent two weeks in the animal hospital, and I spent two weeks in the doghouse. I was hated by the entire town.”

He might have learned some sort of lesson from that despicable affair, but evidently didn’t, as this tale from his adulthood suggests:

After a hard day at the office, he didn’t like the kids crawling all over him when he walked through the door, so the family instituted a rule, giving Dad 30 minutes to unwind, read the paper, or watch the news before the fun could begin. Ryan was a handful. He couldn’t seem to concentrate, did poorly in school, and was diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder. A fifth member of the household, a stubborn little dachshund named Sigmund Freud, added to the chaos. When “Siggie” refused to go to bed one night, Dobson got out a belt and whacked him. The dog bared its teeth and Dobson gave it a second whack. “What developed next is impossible to describe,” writes Dobson in The New Strong-Willed Child. “That tiny dog and I had the most vicious fight ever staged between man and beast. I fought him up one wall and down the other, with both of us scratching and clawing and growling. I am still embarrassed by the memory of the entire scene.”

Embarrassed by it. If I found myself engaging in a battle of wills and strength of this magnitude with a small dog, I’d check myself into the nearest asylum for intensive therapy.

But Dobson—whose experience being thrashed by a “sissy” boy he tried to bully and current habit of traveling with bodyguards, including a retired Delta Force commando, because he “feels embattled” in spite of the battle being “largely one that Dobson’s initiated,” are also among the slices of life shared in the article—has something special that I and anyone else who might take lucid stock of such aberrant behavior don’t have: A belief that he does not sin.

Gil Alexander-Moegerle, a former Focus executive and once one of Dobson’s most trusted advisors, writes in his 1997 book James Dobson’s War on America that this “Holiness” principle is key to understanding Dobson’s worldview: “James Dobson believes that he has been entirely sanctified, morally perfected, that he does not and cannot sin. Now you know why he and moralists like him make a life of condemning what he believes to be the sins of others. He is perfect.”

See how that works? Dobson is perfection on earth, which is a blasphemous sentiment if ever I’ve heard one, and projects the evil so apparent—at least to everyone else—within himself on everyone else. Not just run-of-the-mill flaws, but a seriously dark and dangerous streak that informs his bullying of gays, women, children, and helpless animals. And he leads a religious and political empire so powerful that the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell stand in admiration.

As Zack said, “We live in a world where bullies grow to positions of power without ever having learned anything so simple as basic human decency. … You don’t ignore bullies. You face them down, and you tell them that they are an abomination and you will no longer tolerate their actions.” Dr. James Dobson has turned bullying into a $140 million a year enterprise and perfected The Projection Strategy—and has been rewarded with a direct line to the White House for it. On our list of bullies worth facing down, Dobson’s got to be at the top of the list.