The Medieval Presidency

[paradisiac]

George W. Bush's Medieval Presidency
By Neal Gabler

link to article: LA Times

a few excerpts:

The administration seems indifferent to data, impervious to competing viewpoints and ideas. Policy is not adjusted to facts; facts are adjusted to policy. The result is what may be the nation's first medieval presidency — one in which reality is ignored for the administration's own prevailing vision. And just as in medieval days, this willful ignorance can lead to terrible consequences.

The difference between the current administration and its conservative forebears is that facts don't seem to matter at all. They don't even matter enough to reinterpret. Bush doesn't read the papers or watch the news, and Condoleezza Rice, his national security advisor, reportedly didn't read the National Intelligence Estimate, which is apparently why she missed the remarks casting doubt on claims that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Africa. (She reportedly read the document later.) And although Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld hasn't disavowed reading or watching the news, he has publicly and proudly disavowed paying any attention to it. In this administration, everyone already knows the truth.

Like the church confronting Galileo, they aren't about to let reality destroy their cosmology, whether it is a bankrupt plan for pacifying an Iraq that was supposed to welcome us as liberators or a bankrupt fiscal plan that was supposed to jolt the economy to health.

[DemBones DemBones]

1. An excellent description: a medieval presidency.

The Middle Ages came to an end eventually and so will the Bush* presidency. Will we get an actual Renaissance following it?

[LibertyorDeath]

2. Great article.....

It's time for all Americans to get Medieval on this pathetic excuse
of an administration an the Idiot King.

[scarletwoman]

3. It goes perfectly with the corporate fuedalism that's being instituted

as the the social/economic system in this country...

Funny, I never really had any desire to live in the 13th century, but that seems to be the plan.

sw

[Resistance Is Futile]

4. This is an insult to medieval kings

Most of them had the brains to adapt policy to reality rather than the reverse--for the simple reason that those who tried to do things the other way around so wound up dead.

[Art_from_Ark]

5. The real connection is that like medieval kings,

the current medieval regime wants to rule over a nation of serfs who are so indoctrinated in the religion of the realm that they will believe anything the king says because the king is appointed by God.

[izzie]

6. Why the story the king had no clothing has been a standard tale.

Always truth behind these things. The real madness of King George has hit us once more.Ever thought that we maybe at the end of our greatness? I have. When the men buy there way in and half the people do not vote of care it shows some fault in us that we may not beable to beat.Even the freedom we had to show the world is being taken away by the very men that say they will keep us safe and half the people that do vote like it.Scary for my grandchildren I must say.

[VolcanoJen]

7. Almost makes one nostalgic for the Stem Cell National Address

Sigh...

Excellent article, and thanks for posting that, paradisiac.