[h/t Media Matters]

I'm not sure what part of the Goldwater rule faux shrink and Fox News commentator Keith Ablow doesn't understand, but if he can't even get this right, why should anyone trust his analysis?

The Goldwater rule is part of the ethical standards imposed on mental health professionals which constrain them from offering a diagnosis of people who they have not interviewed personally. Ablow can argue that he's dancing around this by speaking in general terms, but it's pretty obvious to me that his terms are anything but general.

First, he pronounces President Obama's push for gun control in the wake of the Newtown tragedy as a "hijack" of the issue in order to advance his "personal desire for gun control."

Ablow then goes on to say that the real problem is "untreated mental illness." While this may be part of the problem, it is not the only problem. Not at all. In fact, there is an assumption that Adam Lanza was mentally ill, but no evidence of that has been put forth, partly because of HIPAA limitations, but also possibly because he was not mentally ill at all. It's irresponsible to place all of the blame on the shoulders of the mentally ill, untreated or otherwise.

Aside from that, let's remember who dismantled mental health services in this country. It wasn't Obama, it was Reagan, and he did a great job of seeing to it they were not part of our shared collective responsibility. President Obama, on the other hand, made sure the Affordable Care Act included mental health treatment as part of the basic requirements all insurance policies must offer. But God forbid Ablow would acknowledge that when it's just simpler to lay it at the feet of the mentally ill.

You'd think a true conservative might be a little concerned about the idea of a national database of people with mental illness. What illnesses will be included? ADHD? Depression? Insomnia? If someone gets treated for PTSD, will they be included? Half the nation would qualify for that.

Keith Ablow, like his pal Glenn Beck, cannot resist drawing a large, grand conspiratorial picture around every single thing this president says or does. After Lou Dobbs sets up the question with the statement that President Obama is defined by having only one solution to every problem (government), Ablow happily complies, saying, "His solution runs psychologically in the direction of disempowering the individual every single time." When questioned by Dobbs about why that would be, Ablow drops the diagnosis, Goldwater rule or no Goldwater rule.

Claiming "the autonomy of others did him no favors as a kid when he was abandoned again and again," Ablow goes on to say that this abandonment led Obama to believe "the collective needs to be empowered and all the better if [Obama is] the center of the collective and the most powerful person."

In other words, all this talk of gun control has nothing to do with the rights of children and innocent individuals to live their lives without having them cut short by some lunatic with an assault rifle. No, really, it's just about how Barack Obama's mother left him with her parents in Hawaii while she earned a living and a PhD.

Perhaps Fox Business should stick to business and leave personal motive analysis to professionals.