Read this. Really.

[kitchen_kink]

Okay, it's long. But if you haven't yet, read this NY Times article about Bush, faith, and what makes his particular brand of leadership work for so many people. It's frightening - possibly more so than anything I've seen yet, and contains many private exchanges between Bush and advisors - many of whom are no longer invited to the White House because they question him too much.

EDIT: The following was the quotation from the article that I wanted to use. Thanks, cos!

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

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.''
.

Comments

[mylastsigh.livejournal.com]

oh my!

[roy-batty.livejournal.com]

By any chance did you catch Gustav Niebuhr's commentary on "All Things Considered" a couple of weeks ago?

http://www.npr.org/rundowns/segment.php?wfId=4060569

It seems to fit in all too well.

[cycon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I read that. Scary.

reality-based community

[cos]

I read this a few days ago. The section I would have picked to highlight is this:
In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

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.''

Note: The 'most-emailed' articles at nytimes.com stay free longer, before being moved to the for-pay archive. So use the web site's "email this article" feature to send yourself a copy, and send it to some friends, and keep it up on the list.

Also: Suskind's book, 'The Price of Loyalty', is out in paperback. I just picked up a copy at Powell's this weekend. It's the book he wrote based on interviews with Paul O'Neill, Bush's former Treasury Secretary.

Re: reality-based community

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Crap. That was the one I meant to do. Off to edit.

Re: reality-based community

[dda.livejournal.com]

I've seen this quote referenced by William Gibson in his blog (http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2004_10_01_archive.asp#109803212139081479) too. Scary, indeed!

[greendalek.livejournal.com]

Amazing. Thanks for steering me to that.