August 18, 2005

Bushites beginning to flirt with reality?

In a now famous and historic Ron Suskind piece in the New York Times, Bruce Bartlett noted some interesting things in the case of Bush v. Reality.
Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a treasury official for the first President Bush, told me recently that "if Bush wins, there will be a civil war in the Republican Party starting on Nov. 3." The nature of that conflict, as Bartlett sees it? Essentially, the same as the one raging across much of the world: a battle between modernists and fundamentalists, pragmatists and true believers, reason and religion.

"Just in the past few months," Bartlett said, "I think a light has gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do." Bartlett, a 53-year-old columnist and self-described libertarian Republican who has lately been a champion for traditional Republicans concerned about Bush's governance, went on to say: "This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them. . . .

"This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts," Bartlett went on to say. "He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence."
Bartlett paused, then said, "But you can't run the world on faith."
and
The aide said that guys like me [reporters/Suskind] 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."
By the way, this piece spawned a movement among bloggers in which they proclaimed themselves "proud members of the reality-based community".

So, you're not nuts after all. The actions of this administration really don't have any basic in rationality or reality. The right has no respect for reality and feels they can dictate what reality is from day to day.

But now apparently, some in the White House are considering actually trying to operate in the real world.

In a piece in the Washington Post, a "senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion" states,
"We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."
Well, it's a start.

9 Comments:

At 8/18/2005 9:26 AM, Blogger The Inside Dope said...

And I might note, to those who whine that I'm somehow fixated on Jacobs to create controversy or whatever the hell they say, I'd suggest that you stop HeadUsher from hijacking threads that have nothing to do with Jacobs.
That might help.

 
At 8/18/2005 9:55 AM, Blogger The Inside Dope said...

OK.

 
At 8/18/2005 10:48 AM, Blogger The Inside Dope said...

HA! You wish.

Still stupid enough to think that attacking me will make all your problems magically disappear?

The old bully tactics failing you here?

Tsk. tsk. What a pity.

 
At 8/18/2005 12:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'll do my bullying in person when I next see you!

 
At 8/18/2005 2:36 PM, Blogger The Inside Dope said...

Ooooh. Physical threats! I was wondering how long it would take you to resort to blatant thug tactics. And thanks for putting it on the record.

At the rate you're going, I'd say people would be more interested in who YOU really are than my humble identity.

 
At 8/18/2005 3:27 PM, Blogger The Inside Dope said...

Ooooh. Physical threats! I was wondering how long it would take you to resort to blatant thug tactics. And thanks for putting it on the record.

At the rate you're going, I'd say people would be more interested in who YOU really are than my humble identity.

I'd like to be there when you physically threaten the wrong person. That should be good.

And thanks for making my point. Why do this in the open when thugs like you, rather than dealing with the comments of people here, as you're free to do, instead decide to attack me, even going as far as threatening me personally?

It's just that sort of attempted intimidation that is the reason I'll remain anonymous.

 
At 8/18/2005 4:36 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

One thing is for sure Dope, you won't be anonympous for long!

 
At 8/18/2005 6:11 PM, Blogger The Inside Dope said...

Think what you will. I'll remain anonymous.

 
At 8/18/2005 6:15 PM, Blogger The Inside Dope said...

Frankly, I've had it with your stupid threats, your immaturity and the fact that you've managed to completely take over the blog today.
So from now on, post away, but anymore of this stupid crap I'm deleting immediately. I don't care how much you whine. Enough is enough.

 

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