Paul Thomas: Is Tamihere a little bit bonkers? Harebrained behaviour

Back in the days when sticks and stones could break your bones but names could never hurt you, we were all familiar with the concept of temporary insanity. If you did something spectacularly reckless or bound to land you in hot water, people wouldn't hesitate to tell you that you were mad.

As we became more aware that mental illness was exactly that and as political correctness imposed a degree of restraint on social interaction, this concept fell into disuse and we were forced to seek other explanations for harebrained behaviour.

But as the aftershocks from John Tamihere's brain explosion reverberated around the world, amateur shrinks popped up right, left and centre. Temporary insanity, it seems, is back in vogue.

When the story broke, the attempts to explain the inexplicable followed three broad themes: Tamihere was suffering from stress brought on by the Serious Fraud Office investigation and related financial pressures; he was venting his frustration at not being restored to the Cabinet; he was making a calculated bid for the redneck vote, which has apparently been up for grabs since Winston Peters revealed that his tipple of choice was aromatic white wine.

But when the second helping was served up, there was a swift rethink. Thwarted ambition and political miscalculation simply failed to do justice to Tamihere's rant, with its foaming-at-the-mouth references to "front bums" and the Holocaust and the malicious swipe at one of his closest political allies.

Those anonymous but garrulous Labour Party sources announced that his only hope of avoiding expulsion lay in agreeing to an extended period of psychiatric counselling. While our justice system accepts that mental disorder diminishes an individual's responsibility for his actions, said sources were simultaneously and contradictorily demanding an extended period of grovelling, which suggested a determination to maximise the humiliation.

In Jerusalem a director of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre advised Tamihere to seek psychological help because "Holocaust fatigue is simply a new form of mental illness".

Tamihere's mate, Willie Jackson, muddied the waters somewhat by deriding the idea of counselling as "bullshit" but adding, "He's always been a bit of a crazy man".

So what should we make of it? Is Tamihere a little bit bonkers?

Holocaust fatigue may be a number of things, none of them admirable, but to apply a blanket diagnosis of mental illness seems a stretch. Holocaust denial is another matter but Tamihere didn't go there.

"How many times do I have to be told and made to feel guilty?" he bleated. Not that many, I wouldn't have thought. How hard can it be, even for those who frequent the Beehive, to get through the day without being harangued about the Holocaust? Maybe its time he found some new hangouts.

But if the case for disturbance upstairs is pretty thin, where do we turn? Is it possible he's simply a fool? Moaning about the sisterhood's pervasive influence on the court of Queen Helen is a bit like lamenting the shortage of chicks at the Neverland Ranch. In both cases you're simply advertising the fact that you're a long way from your natural habitat.

And although Tamihere didn't engage in Holocaust denial, politicians should surely be aware that comments of this sort serve no purpose and achieve no end apart from giving encouragement to the most loathsome elements of the lunatic fringe. Furthermore, to talk about the Holocaust in the sort of language one might use in a domestic argument is to invite the charge of ignorance on a cosmic scale.

An obvious explanation - and one immediately advanced by the Prime Minister - is that Tamihere had a few too many drinks under his belt. New Zealand has a long tradition of politicians behaving badly under the influence and while "alcohol is no excuse" has become a mantra in recent years, the reality is that it excuses quite a lot.

As various American celebrities have demonstrated, you can get away with almost anything if you check yourself in to the Betty Ford Clinic before the smoke has cleared.

If Tamihere does take some stress leave, he could do worse than head over to Australia's Northern Territory, which may well be the last refuge of the red-blooded, foul-mouthed, undeodorised, pig-ignorant-and-proud-of-it man. This week one of the territory's federal MPs urged his constituents to take up their cricket bats and golf clubs and beat a few cane toads to death on the basis that the best way to eradicate this pest is to make it a game all the family can play.

Like calling people mad at the drop of a hat, this also took me back to my callous youth. On holiday in Fiji, a friend and I would venture forth at dusk to indulge in the sport of toad-kicking. This required some skill, the key being to connect with the toad in mid-hop, thereby turning it into the reptilian equivalent of a juicy half-volley.

But even then, I think, I would've regarded the idea that the entire community should go after the brutes with cricket bats and golf clubs - imagine the mess you'd make with a three iron - as mad, not to mention unsporting.

* Paul Thomas is a Wellington writer.