The reality based community - where did that phrase come from again?

[baby_mouse]

Who made up that weird thing about the neocons "writing" reality and the rest of us "studying" it?


I'd like to know what he thinks these days.

[Pirate Smile]

1. This article by Ron Suskind.

Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush
By RON SUSKIND

Published: October 17, 2004


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.''


Forty democratic senators were gathered for a lunch in March just off the Senate floor. I was there as a guest speaker. Joe Biden was telling a story, a story about the president. ''I was in the Oval Office a few months after we swept into Baghdad,'' he began, ''and I was telling the president of my many concerns'' -- concerns about growing problems winning the peace, the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanding of the Iraqi Army and problems securing the oil fields. Bush, Biden recalled, just looked at him, unflappably sure that the United States was on the right course and that all was well. '''Mr. President,' I finally said, 'How can you be so sure when you know you don't know the facts?'''

Biden said that Bush stood up and put his hand on the senator's shoulder. ''My instincts,'' he said. ''My instincts.''

Biden paused and shook his head, recalling it all as the room grew quiet. ''I said, 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough!'''

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html?ex=1255665600&en=890a96189e162076&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

[baby_mouse]

5. COLD HORROR SWEEPS OVER BABYMOUSE.

AH.

That last exchange between Biden and Bush lays to rest for me the whole argument between "stupid" and "evil". He's neither. He's ILL. HORRIBLY, HORRIBLY UNWELL...

There's a man with a mental illness in charge of the world.

[Pirate Smile]

7. You have to read the whole terrifying article to really get it.

:scared:

[baby_mouse]

10. I don't want to. Really don't. NT

[bananas]

2. There's a wikipedia entry with the details

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_based_community

[Skinner]

3. It's from an anonymous Bush Admin aide, quoted in the New York Times

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.''

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html?ex=1255665600&en=890a96189e162076&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based

community,''

As opposed to them, who create their own reality.

IOW, they are NOT the reality-based community, by their own admission.

And they think this is supposed to be a good thing.

[baby_mouse]

9. I wonder what they make of Hurricane Katrina.

Now that must have been a nasty surprise...

[Fridays Child]

4. A Bush aide said it to Ron Suskind. Here...

"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."

A senior adviser to Bush, as quoted by RON SUSKIND.

The original article, "Without a Doubt," was published by the by the NY Times, on 10/17/04. I don't believe that it's available without a subscription, now, but here's the address: http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30F1EF93A5F0C748DDDA90994DC404482

[chaplainM]

6. Suskind was quoting

...an unnamed "senior adviser."

[Jose Diablo]

11. Like others have said, Ron Suskind quoting, but I seem to remember

In the "Brave New World"- O'Brien is talking to (?) about how futile it is to be so caught-up in trying to study history, as history is changed to fit the current needs. O'Brien uses the phrase reality-based, but I cannot find it now. Probably the unnamed official Suskind quotes, studied the book in trying to devise a 'optimal' society during college days, and as such is fond of using it to justify what they are trying to do.

Or maybe it was the book "1984".

Edit:Spelling, typos and add the reference to 1984.

[chaplainM]

12. Isn't the O'Brien character

...Winston Smith's interrogator in "1984?"

[Jose Diablo]

13. Yes, I just edited my post before seing yours. n/t

[Jose Diablo]

14. But you know, even the so called conflict of Faith vs Reality could be

called a false dilemma (dichotomy?) I believe is the debating technique.

I remember when I was but a boy, I used to read my fathers "Men at War" magazines. Within this 'zine contained the most amazing photo's. One that has stuck with me all these years was of a scene in Russia. The Germans had been pushed back, and the collaborating with the German traitors had been captured and were about to be dealt with. This specific photo was of a guy, dressed in rags standing on the gallows with a noose around his neck right before a hood was to be placed over his head. I remember the look in his eyes, sort of a haunted look, and a look of disbelief. He could not believe that he was about to die.

When I hear about the Faith vs Reality based arguments, I think of that guy. He didn't really think he would be killed, but in the end, reality won the discussion as he found out. Just like these people that question reality will find out, one day.