Wednesday, October 20, 2004
The Reality Based Community
Ron Suskind has a marvelous story in this week's NYT Magazine about the presidency of George W. Bush. The thesis of the story is that Goerge Bush is entirely isolated from the outside world and that his self-righteous devotion to his own cause, his own beliefs, has led him to accept those beliefs as ascendent over facts. Thus Bush lives in a faith-based world as opposed to the reality based world.
The maximal quote is this one:
The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
The Bush Administration is clearly out of touch with reality. Where will this lead us? To more terrible policy ideas. To wit, another quote from the same Suskind article:
"I'm going to come out strong after my swearing in,'' Bush said, ''with fundamental tax reform, tort reform, privatizing of Social Security.'' The victories he expects in November, he said, will give us ''two years, at least, until the next midterm. We have to move quickly, because after that I'll be quacking like a duck.'' And this in an interview in today's Salon:
As well, the president said, "I'm going to have an opportunity to name somebody to the Supreme Court right after my swearing in." That certainly suggests to me a quid pro quo, that there's been at least a passing of communication, if you will, between someone on the Supreme Court and the White House that immediately after the president's swearing in he'll have his first of what he considers, as he said at the luncheon, the first of four spots that he's expected to [be able to name] in his second term.
If he wins Bush is preparing to come out swinging. Lets hope he doesn't.
The maximal quote is this one:
The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
The Bush Administration is clearly out of touch with reality. Where will this lead us? To more terrible policy ideas. To wit, another quote from the same Suskind article:
"I'm going to come out strong after my swearing in,'' Bush said, ''with fundamental tax reform, tort reform, privatizing of Social Security.'' The victories he expects in November, he said, will give us ''two years, at least, until the next midterm. We have to move quickly, because after that I'll be quacking like a duck.'' And this in an interview in today's Salon:
As well, the president said, "I'm going to have an opportunity to name somebody to the Supreme Court right after my swearing in." That certainly suggests to me a quid pro quo, that there's been at least a passing of communication, if you will, between someone on the Supreme Court and the White House that immediately after the president's swearing in he'll have his first of what he considers, as he said at the luncheon, the first of four spots that he's expected to [be able to name] in his second term.
If he wins Bush is preparing to come out swinging. Lets hope he doesn't.
# posted by N.D. Burnside @ 8:20 AM 
