In his classic book, Man's Search for Meaning, Auschwitz survivor and psychiatrist Dr. Viktor Frankl related what it was like to be processed through the camp, to face sortings by the SS where captives were sent to their deaths (about 90 percent were every time, he said) or to work parties.

Frankl wrote that when facing a sorting, it was very common for captives to exhibit what psychiatrists called “the delusion of reprieve.” Every individual so deluded - and that meant almost all the captives, said Frankl - would latch onto the very thinnest hope of being selected to live and mentally make it a certainty. Frankl wrote that condemned prisoners in ordinary times also often exhibit this delusion, convincing themselves that an executive remission of the sentence was on the way, sometimes right up until the hour of execution. People with terminal illnesses or facing severe adversities short of death often exhibit this delusion, too, on very little or no real-world basis at all.

Now Drudge reports (link probably perishable) of Saddam (whose "hunger strike" lasted all of one meal):

Saddam Hussein believes the Americans may reinstall him as president of Iraq, the NEW YORK TIMES is planning to report on Sunday, newsroom sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

Saddam Hussein has no illusions, his chief lawyer says. As he sits in his prison cell reading the Quran and writing poetry, he knows the inevitable is coming -- a death sentence handed down by the Iraqi court trying him for crimes against humanity.

Yet Saddam refuses to submit to the fate that awaits him, Khalil al-Dulaimi, said, for he believes there is a way out:

President Bush will use the court's sentence as leverage to try to persuade Saddam to tamp down the insurgency, he said, so desperate are the Americans to stanch their losses.

In his madness, Saddam believes the Americans might even reinstall him as president of Iraq!

Nutty as a fruitcake.

Cross-posted at donaldsensing.com