What does it mean: Administration is "Shedding unreality..."

[kentuck]

"..that dominated invasion"? "Shedding unreality"? What a strange Orwellian way to say it???

This is reported in todays Washington Post by Robin Wright and Ellen Knickmeyer.
======================================================

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/13/AR2005081300853.html

<snip>
The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."

....more

[hobbit709]

1. "Shedding unreality"

Sounds like they're doing undrugs

[annabanana]

9. "exfoliating error"

"flaking off falsehood"

huh

[electropop]

30. Hahaha!

Losing the lies.
Defecating the deception.
Brushing off the bullshit.

:rofl:

[GreenPartyVoter]

38. *lol* They can launch a political skin care line

[mediaman007]

15. Code: "Shedding Unreality" = Chalk up another loss for America

Just one more misadventure in the life of Uncurious George. Time to rake the sandbox and head in another direction.

[awoke_in_2003]

22. while shedding unreality

you sometimes have to "catapult the propoganda"

[G_j]

2. after shredding reality

shedding unreality is an interesting concept coming from pathological liars.

[cornermouse]

3. The real question

Are they really "shedding unreality"? Or are they simply doing what's expedient as they draw up new more interesting plans for, say, Iran, Syria, and whoever else is unlucky enough to catch their attention?

[evermind]

4. An obtuse way of admitting they lied wholesale, and an implied promise

that they are no longer lying (which few will believe.)

[kentuck]

7. Yep...

At the minimum, they are admitting that it was not "real". But I think it is the political reality that they are unable to shed.

[Hubert Flottz]

26. It was as real as it gets, for Cindy and hundreds like Cindy!

The dead American kids Bush sneaked back into this country in the middle of the night in coffins, like he was ashamed of reality, were real! The bloody mess that Bush/Blair's lies caused in the Middle East is REAL!

If they want to talk about things that were not real, let us dwell on the REAL outcome of the last three national elections.

Sometimes I honestly believe, that Bushco wants to create a civil war in the US!

[wishlist]

5. Bush though is still spreading same unrealistic (delusional) rhetoric

With his talk this week about staying the course and not withdrawing troops and that we went to Iraq to secure and defend our country, he is either delusional and not facing reality or else trying desperately to keep the deception alive for his supporters so the tide doesn't totally turn against him.

[HockeyMom]

8. Yet they want to repeat the process in IRAN?

[Spinzonner]

6. It means that they're too ignorant, stupid, and reckless

to be running the country.

[acmejack]

10. Joining the reality based community

which they were so contemptuous of at one time! Remember, we were told that we "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." and "That's not the way the world really works anymore, 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."

[kentuck]

13. Interpreted :

"Otherwise, we're arrogant, stupid assholes."

[marions ghost]

17. we're studying it all right

OMG -- what's this quote from?

[enough]

19. from somebody speaking very very carefully.

"a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in"

Nobody talks like that voluntarily.

[Jazzgirl]

20. From an article written by the writer Ron Suskind.

He was recounting a conversation with a senior *shrub official. Scary ain't it??

[kentuck]

21. It is another definition of insanity.

To ignore the reality that we are surrounded by and to try to create your own reality is not "normal".

[marions ghost]

32. Instant Reality Transplant

as the OP said--'Orwellian.' (How did '1984' end?--Can't remember but I think not good.)

Am I crazy or wasn't it 2 days ago that press conference in Crawford was all about "stay the course"? Maybe there's one message for the Sheeple (gotta fix what we broke) and another for those who might be reading the Washington Post--"Sorry bout that...Get Over It"

Talk about Unreality. THIS article is Unreality. Neo-con Hope Springs Eternal-- Listen up y'all, we're just gonna shed this old skin and be Born Again...! Drinks on us. Iraq is now officially history. Adjust, losers. Whoever you are.

In Bizarro World, every day is a New Reality. History is revised before it's even over. Maybe some of those "Democracy building"
experts they sent to Iraq can figure out how to build Democracy in America.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

33. Ron Suskind article 'Without a Doubt', originally from NYT, available here

http://www.hereinstead.com/Suskind-WithoutaDoubt.htm

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.''

...


The crowd went wild, and they went wild again when the president finally arrived and gave his stump speech. There were Bush's periodic stumbles and gaffes, but for the followers of the faith-based president, that was just fine. They got it -- and ''it'' was the faith.

And for those who don't get it? That was explained to me in late 2002 by Mark McKinnon, a longtime senior media adviser to Bush, who now runs his own consulting firm and helps the president. He started by challenging me. ''You think he's an idiot, don't you?'' I said, no, I didn't. ''No, you do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don't care. You see, you're outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don't read The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it's good for us. Because you know what those folks don't like? They don't like you!'' In this instance, the final ''you,'' of course, meant the entire reality-based community.

[marions ghost]

34. thanks for posting those

actual words from the Unreality-based Community....

[Al-CIAda]

39. Good post, I immediately thought of this as well.

I do not believe for a second the lepard has changed its' spots either.

[underpants]

11. absorbing the factors

More like taking a bath.*

Just imagine how any other administration would have been painted as a bunch of bungling boobs (starting with apologizing to the Chinese for knocking OUR plane out of the sky/ political contributors piloting a submarine into a tourist boat/etc.) if not for the "liberal media".

*I was wrong it is like being sprayed down with a hose AND stepping on a rake at the same time.

[punpirate]

12. Hey, I thought these were the people who...

... made reality, while the rest of us schlubs were relegated to recording and interpreting the reality these hard chargers made....

But, dutifully interpreting this latest so-called tidbit of reality, it must mean that enough neo-cons have jumped the sinking ship (Feith, Wolfowitz, et al) that others in the Pentagon are now free to describe things as they actually are, albeit as anonymous sources, rather than fearing immediate contradiction from the neo-cons.

I doubt, however, that it means that the remainder of the neo-cons have descended from their ethereal heights to experience reality like the rest of us mortals.

It must also mean that Rumsfeld is either going out the door or getting promoted. Wonder if there will be a huge banner on the front door of the Pentagon saying, "So Long, Snowflakes!" :P

[laststeamtrain]

14. I prefer the plain English: WE LIED.

But it's the Washington Post. 'Librul' media central.

So, what'd we get for the tens of thousands dead and maimed and the few trillion bucks?

Nothin'?

I hope this news changes some more minds about the Bush gang.

[glitch]

31. We get dead zones and global climate change and debt for generations

and they get to reap what they've sown: the world's hatred.

[bribri16]

16. Remember, the neocon bragged about "making their own reality."

I guess they didn't like what they made.

[annabanana]

18. ..made their own turds, more like...

like potty training, fascinated by what they "did".. and insisting that we admire it too.

[Talismom]

28. LOL! Great analogy! n/t

[evilqueen]

23. Let the impeachments begin.

Clue for Freepers : You have been lied to. Study that truth.

Mr. Fitzgerald, where are those indictments, we need those now.

American People : If anyone in this administration even MENTIONS the idea of invading any other country, please drag the whole cabal into the streets for tarring and feathering. We'll figure out how they can return the money they stole after they're impeached. I suggest a wide-spread freeze of their assets and that of the corporations that helped all this happen.

[Talismom]

29. This course of action is dead on! I especially relish the vision of them

all being dragged into the streets for their come-uppance!

[SpiralHawk]

24. Buscho "sheds unreality" to better "catapult propaganda"

eom

[Burried News]

40. Maybe it's like "we must endeavor to persevere"?

(Outlaw Josey Wales)
http://www.unique-design.net/library/nature/consequence/persevere.html

[katinmn]

25. It's double-speak, like stop-loss.

[stevedeshazer]

27. shedding unreality = they LOST the war.

[Malikshah]

35. In other words... Wake up and Smell the Reality!!

My personal pick for a better headline..

Wright, the WP, etc. should be taken to task for reporting this without clarifying the pathetic attempts by the regime to obfuscate their complete ineptitude.

[salin]

36. Someone better tell "Noble Cause" (but I dont want anyone in my family

volunteering to fight for it) Bushjr, 'cause he doesn't seem to be on this particular message.

[wli]

37. shoving more bull down the memory hole

[warrens]

41. Time for them to admit they're just too bloody stupid and nazi-like

To ever be allowed to make a decision more profound than hamburger or fishwich ever, ever again.

[jimshoes]

42. That's better that them just coming out and

saying, we're taking a mulligan on Iraq, cuz its fubar.