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solarbirdI'm posting this because it's much too much like what I've been picking up as how the Bush administration - and how President Bush in particular - works.
-----
Without a Doubt
By RON SUSKIND
October 17, 2004
TinyURL here: http://tinyurl.com/5nb83
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!'''
The democrat Biden and the Republican Bartlett are trying to make sense of the same thing -- a president who has been an extraordinary blend of forcefulness and inscrutability, opacity and action.
But lately, words and deeds are beginning to connect.
The Delaware senator was, in fact, hearing what Bush's top deputies -- from cabinet members like Paul O'Neill, Christine Todd Whitman and Colin Powell to generals fighting in Iraq -- have been told for years when they requested explanations for many of the president's decisions, policies that often seemed to collide with accepted facts. The president would say that he relied on his ''gut'' or his ''instinct'' to guide the ship of state, and then he ''prayed over it.'' The old pro Bartlett, a deliberative, fact-based wonk, is finally hearing a tune that has been hummed quietly by evangelicals (so as not to trouble the secular) for years as they gazed upon President George W. Bush. This evangelical group -- the core of the energetic ''base'' that may well usher Bush to victory -- believes that their leader is a messenger from God. And in the first presidential debate, many Americans heard the discursive John Kerry succinctly raise, for the first time, the issue of Bush's certainty -- the issue being, as Kerry put it, that ''you can be certain and be wrong.''
What underlies Bush's certainty? And can it be assessed in the temporal realm of informed consent?
All of this -- the ''gut'' and ''instincts,'' the certainty and religiosity -connects to a single word, ''faith,'' and faith asserts its hold ever more on debates in this country and abroad. That a deep Christian faith illuminated the personal journey of George W. Bush is common knowledge. But faith has also shaped his presidency in profound, nonreligious ways. The president has demanded unquestioning faith from his followers, his staff, his senior aides and his kindred in the Republican Party. Once he makes a decision -- often swiftly, based on a creed or moral position -- he expects complete faith in its rightness.
The disdainful smirks and grimaces that many viewers were surprised to see in the first presidential debate are familiar expressions to those in the administration or in Congress who have simply asked the president to explain his positions. Since 9/11, those requests have grown scarce; Bush's intolerance of doubters has, if anything, increased, and few dare to question him now. A writ of infallibility -- a premise beneath the powerful Bushian certainty that has, in many ways, moved mountains -- is not just for public consumption: it has guided the inner life of the White House. As Whitman told me on the day in May 2003 that she announced her resignation as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency: ''In meetings, I'd ask if there were any facts to support our case. And for that, I was accused of disloyalty!'' (Whitman, whose faith in Bush has since been renewed, denies making these remarks and is now a leader of the president's re-election effort in New Jersey.)
Much, much more at the web site.
-----
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.''
Without a Doubt
By RON SUSKIND
October 17, 2004
TinyURL here: http://tinyurl.com/5nb83
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!'''
The democrat Biden and the Republican Bartlett are trying to make sense of the same thing -- a president who has been an extraordinary blend of forcefulness and inscrutability, opacity and action.
But lately, words and deeds are beginning to connect.
The Delaware senator was, in fact, hearing what Bush's top deputies -- from cabinet members like Paul O'Neill, Christine Todd Whitman and Colin Powell to generals fighting in Iraq -- have been told for years when they requested explanations for many of the president's decisions, policies that often seemed to collide with accepted facts. The president would say that he relied on his ''gut'' or his ''instinct'' to guide the ship of state, and then he ''prayed over it.'' The old pro Bartlett, a deliberative, fact-based wonk, is finally hearing a tune that has been hummed quietly by evangelicals (so as not to trouble the secular) for years as they gazed upon President George W. Bush. This evangelical group -- the core of the energetic ''base'' that may well usher Bush to victory -- believes that their leader is a messenger from God. And in the first presidential debate, many Americans heard the discursive John Kerry succinctly raise, for the first time, the issue of Bush's certainty -- the issue being, as Kerry put it, that ''you can be certain and be wrong.''
What underlies Bush's certainty? And can it be assessed in the temporal realm of informed consent?
All of this -- the ''gut'' and ''instincts,'' the certainty and religiosity -connects to a single word, ''faith,'' and faith asserts its hold ever more on debates in this country and abroad. That a deep Christian faith illuminated the personal journey of George W. Bush is common knowledge. But faith has also shaped his presidency in profound, nonreligious ways. The president has demanded unquestioning faith from his followers, his staff, his senior aides and his kindred in the Republican Party. Once he makes a decision -- often swiftly, based on a creed or moral position -- he expects complete faith in its rightness.
The disdainful smirks and grimaces that many viewers were surprised to see in the first presidential debate are familiar expressions to those in the administration or in Congress who have simply asked the president to explain his positions. Since 9/11, those requests have grown scarce; Bush's intolerance of doubters has, if anything, increased, and few dare to question him now. A writ of infallibility -- a premise beneath the powerful Bushian certainty that has, in many ways, moved mountains -- is not just for public consumption: it has guided the inner life of the White House. As Whitman told me on the day in May 2003 that she announced her resignation as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency: ''In meetings, I'd ask if there were any facts to support our case. And for that, I was accused of disloyalty!'' (Whitman, whose faith in Bush has since been renewed, denies making these remarks and is now a leader of the president's re-election effort in New Jersey.)
Much, much more at the web site.
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no subject
Date: 2004-10-16 10:01 pm (UTC)They said all this last time, and they were wrong, and they're saying it all again this time, and they're wrong. That and of course that so much of what's gone on in the White House during meetings and crises has been recorded and published and none of this has ever actually taken place. But no, if you are religious these days, you are EVIL!!!!
Don't any of you even stop to realize the hypocracy of this belief?
And really, taking the word of Joe Biden? Please!
This is nothing but yet -another- hit piece. Let's hear some talk about Kerry's military records, you know, the ones he won't release? or how about his voting record? You know, the one he hides? Or how about his divorce? You know the one the court won't unseal? (but it unsealed a Republican's divorce papers so he had to leave the election), or how about his taxes? You know, how he pays HALF of what everyone else does? There are all these facts that ALL of the press are ignoring. Yet the slightest fantasy about Bush and we have a week long press cycle devoted to it with 24 hour coverage.
If Bush gets re-elected he's not going to become some all powerful demi-god. Really, grow UP People! Aren't any of you bothered by how so many democrates are acting like NUT CASES? The party is coming apart because it has lost power and is desperate. The psycho's have taken it over and are saying truely bizarre things. Listening to it is not healthy. Believing any of it is a lot worse. Stop listening to the man behind the curtain, and start thinking about either fixing the democratic party, or replacing it with something better.
Personally I'd like to recommend the Libertarians :-)
no subject
Date: 2004-10-16 10:18 pm (UTC)Trying to discredit something is usually a good sign that there's some truth to it, but you don't even back up your attempt to write it off. You just act like everyone out there should realize what you think the truth is.
I also love how you attempt to turn this back around on Kerry by bringing up old military records, for one. While I think he should've released them if he was going to use Vietnam during his campaigning, I fail to see what that has to do with anything going on now.
This is about how Bush is living in a fantasy world where he can do no wrong. Not only is he blind to the real world, he scoffs at it.
Afraid?
Date: 2004-10-16 10:20 pm (UTC)Evil?
Date: 2004-10-16 10:31 pm (UTC)Shrub, a demi-god? That's not the word I'd use... Anti-Christ seems more accurate.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-16 11:14 pm (UTC)And, of course, you’ve totally misread the text. Nobody here is accusing religious people of being evil. What’s being complained about is basically hubris, a certainty based in false faith, really the sort of thing that kills any actual religious feeling. I know quite a few religious people for whom religion is a source of humility and wonder and humble confidence. The troublemakers are the ones for whom it’s a source of the belief that their gut instincts trump actual facts.
And what’s this noise about Kerry hiding his voting record? How the heck does a US Senator hide his voting record? What, does he have minions running around to libraries all over the country swiping twenty years’ worth of copies of the Congressional Record?
And which court are you talking about that supposedly has jurisdiction over divorce cases in both Illinois and Massachusetts?
And is there some particular reason we shouldn’t take the word of Joe Biden? ’Cause I figure if there was a real reason, you’d tell us. The fact that you haven’t just means that you’re afraid that if you actually do give us a reason, we’ll go out on the net looking for actual evidence and find out you’re bullshitting us. Like usual.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-16 11:32 pm (UTC)This. What you're writing. It is not reality-checked. It is not based on observation. It is from space.
Fundamentalists are not the target. They are not helpless. They are not a punching bag. The people who criticize them are not lashing out.
The people who criticize them are scared.
When you say that being religious is treated as 'EVIL!!!' that is from space. It is a fantasy. It is a tactic.
People who are religious have a very easy way to earn the respect of everyone around them. They can be good people. They can say good things. They can do good works. They can not do crazy nutcase things.
It's that easy.
The people who are scared are not the DNC. The DNC is . . . troubled. The people who are scared are ordinary people. They are not genetically Democrats. They are not an inferior and easily frightened Democratic race.
They are people.
Who have been scared.
Who feel something horribly wrong.
And are looking for what it is.
And are pretty sure that it's not religious persecution.
Because, in America, the persecution of Christianity is pretty much only happening in space.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-16 11:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-17 12:06 am (UTC)What is the "right thing" that he's doing?
Is that worth the rest of the problems that have come up during his time in the White House?
Is that worth our rights being compromised in the interest of "national security?"
Is that worth having a President in office who is against abortion, against gays having the right to marry, and so on?
I say no. The ends do not justify the means. I hear a lot of people say Bush is doing the right thing by going after the terrorists, and I do believe that is the right thing to do. But, I do not believe Bush is the only man capable of continuing this, and I do not believe we are suddenly going to find ourselves under more attacks if Bush does not remain in office.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-17 12:17 am (UTC)However, your claims that he is living in a 'Fantasy World' as well as the claims made in the article are quite ridiculous. Why should I have to disprove something that has not been proven? The burden lies on -you- to prove something so outrageous. Not on me to disprove it.
So before you tell me that I must disprove that 'Bush Scoffs at the real world', please -prove- to me that he does.
I bring up the Kerry stuff, because it is very important. The Man got a bad discharge. Probably a bad conduct discharge. This most likely makes it illegal for him to be a Senator, much less a President. Probably why he got it changed. If there is anything that we the public need to know about a man running for President, it is if he is LEGALLY allowed to hold the position. Don't you think? What is he hiding from us? What? Aren't you the least bit curious? Or has your hate consumed you so much, that logic discourse and important questions no longer matter?
Talk about scoffing at the real world...
no subject
Date: 2004-10-17 12:23 am (UTC)Thanks.
Re: Evil?
Date: 2004-10-17 12:24 am (UTC)In other words, quit being so over the top dramatic. Nothing such has happened, and it's not going to.
As for the 'crusades' I don't see anyone being converted at the point of a sword, do you?
And I find your concern for our soldiers touching, though somehow I suspect it's not really heart felt. I hear so many people who are so willing to voice concern for those who they often dispise for serving our country. (oh btw, I'm a veteran).
And I would not call the war in Iraq 'senseless' unless of course you don't mind the torture and murder of hundreds of thousands 'sensible', the promotion of terrorism 'sensible', and the continued destabilization of a region and the oppression of millions 'sensible'. You only oppose this for one reason: The President isn't a liberal.
After all, where were you during Kosovo?
no subject
Date: 2004-10-17 12:27 am (UTC)A typical Agrumer post. All BS.
And not Kerry hiding it, the PRESS hiding it. You never hear them talking about how he's one of the most liberal Senators in Congress, do you? And as for Joe Biden, the man has been Bullshitting for years and making stuff up. Heck, just take any of his anti-gun tirrads for a start.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-17 12:30 am (UTC)As for President Bush, it isn't so much "how he comes to a decision," it's more that he's picked up the...
There's a religious position common to fundamentalist protestantism that spiritually, you must be "with Jesus" or "with Satan," and that there's no inbetween. That has, over the last few decades, become a social meme within the fundamentliast evangelical community, and, in the last decade or so, has moved from there into the political realm as well.
There are big problems with this. First, is that any opposition becomes evil. Not just wrong; not just misguided: evil. To be destroyed. That's why you hear that kind of rhetoric so commonly out of political advisors of the President. Questions are disloyal; opposition is treason. (Hence books by that title.) Second, if you're the Right Side, which is therefore God's Side, and God cannot be wrong, any data that conflicts with your views must therefore be "wrong," no matter how well demonstrated, and anything presented that supports your views must be "right," no matter how factually errant.
You used to see this mostly with creationists, anti-abortion activists, and gun-control activists on the left; lots of made-up "facts," lots of attempts - often via outright lies - to discrect actual empirical data. In the 90s, you naturally saw it extended to anti-gay politics.
It's bad enough there. It's even worse when it extends over into all decision-making. It's corrosive.
I have a healthy respect for emperical data and the process of rational thinking. President Bush doesn't. He does not apparently care what the facts are. That strikes me as very dangerous, and very bad to have in a president.
This isn't about marginal tax rates. It isn't even about terrorism or foreign policy. It is, I admit, about whether I get to continue living here, but that's just me. It's not true for most people. What it's about for everyone is... whether the ideas of the enlightenment should mean anything. Whether reason matters. Whether facts are true, or just opinions to be decided by the people who yell the loudest or have the most power.
Even independant of the social issues which attack me and my family directly, and that he was running on throughout the first half of his campaign.
Kerry's a wanker. I don't like him either. He's not even the point, though, for me. For me, it's whether someone as bad - for me - as President Bush should get a second term. I can't imagine how he could. Tax cuts are cool. Faith trumping reality... kinda isn't. And it's all well and good to say, "I'm voting for lower marginal tax rates and social security reform, and not for these other things," but you don't get to slice-and-dice candidates like that. You vote for one... and you're kind of voting for the other.
Man, it's going to be an ugly second term. (I do think he's going to win, btw. I think Kerry might still be able to pull it out, but I don't think he will.) I'm not looking forward to it at all.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-17 12:32 am (UTC)Please explain what the other problems are.
Our rights are no more compromised than they were in the past. Neither party has a good record in restraining the bureaucratic desire to create new rules.
For all the things Bush is against he has been pretty poor at getting them passed. A constitutional amendment has got to be the slowest possible way to get a law passed.
Kerry is a pacifist at best, he will try to find out why the terrorist want to behead people, and reach a understanding. That is lunacy.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-17 12:33 am (UTC)I see the ACLU always going after the Christian religion (but not the Muslim when in the exact same circumstances, like praying in school).
So please don't tell me it's only happening in Space. It's happening here everyday.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-17 12:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-17 12:36 am (UTC)You say that Bush doesn't like hearing opposing sides, then why hasn't he fired Collin Powell? Why did he work with Ted Kennedy? That statement flies in the face of his actions. Cite some examples please.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-17 12:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-17 12:43 am (UTC)Someone not being very good at what they're trying to do doesn't change the quality of the attempted deed itself.
And he's been very successful at the most important element of that amendment passage attempt: rallying his fundamentalist base. Don't get me - or them - wrong. They want that amendment. They want it because they need to insert a wedge between us and equal protection, and they need to do it at the Constitutional level. (This isn't my speculation; I heard that at the anti-marriage rally in Safeco field last summer, too.) It's not just about marriage and domestic partnerships; it's about whether we're full citizens.
Or as one of the speakers at Safeco put it, "Without this amendment, we have no way to discriminate against them." Without it, abominations like this past summer's Virginia laws - limiting the contract rights of queers at the most basic level - won't get upheld in court. But with it... they might. The toehold will be there.
Anyway.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-17 12:43 am (UTC)And in the process, he's alienating the USA from the rest of the world because of his reckless cowboy antics. He's also using the threat of terrorism as an excuse to continue fear-mongering tactics geared to keep him in power. The trick is making the public fear another attack so much and to paint himself as the only guy who can protect them that people will HAVE to vote him back into office. Hell, Cheney as good as said it when he said putting Kerry in the White House would invite further attacks on us.
What about the violent crimes our own citizens commit? You do realize you're more likely to die as a result of a fellow American attacking you than you are from a foreign terrorist, I hope.
Bush is trying to get everyone to believe differently.
Please explain what the other problems are.
Our rights are no more compromised than they were in the past. Neither party has a good record in restraining the bureaucratic desire to create new rules.
I've already listed a few, and if you think Bush wouldn't appoint new Supreme Court justices that fall in line with his Godly, conservative views, you're in need of a wake-up call. That will be part of his legacy if he is re-elected, because there will be new appointees during this next Presidential term. We could very well say goodbye to a woman's right to abortion, and that's just the start.
For all the things Bush is against he has been pretty poor at getting them passed. A constitutional amendment has got to be the slowest possible way to get a law passed.
If you're talking about the gay marriage issue, that seems to have been a smokescreen to distract people from ongoing problems in Iraq. That whole war has turned out to be a farce, and the only good thing about it has been the removal of Saddam Hussein. However, the events that led to it have been shown to be dishonest in nature. Lies. Deception.
Kerry is a pacifist at best, he will try to find out why the terrorist want to behead people, and reach a understanding. That is lunacy.
That's just bullshit.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-17 12:44 am (UTC)Now if I was blind, I wouldn't be able to SEE myself in the mirror, would I?
Try harder next time.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-17 12:47 am (UTC)But it doesn't. For years I thought that was what liberals wanted throughout the world. Now we find that for these it is not.
No, I can't understand it either.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-17 12:48 am (UTC)Further, I'm sure Bush knew it would get shot down when it came up for vote. But the Republicans already made it clear that they were determined to politicize the issue and would continue fighting to get it passed.
So, yeah - equal rights for all unless you're gay, I guess.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-17 12:49 am (UTC)I mean, honestly. Is he legally entitled to hold the office of President? Is he a purple lemur in a mask? Does he like to go home and have mad sex with shoggoths?
It doesn't have anything to do with Bush.
So, about Bush. Look. Proof is a bad standard. No one here has the primary sources to make a good proof either way.
Even if we had them, the longer you make an argument, and the stricter the requirements on each argument, the easier it is to pick holes in it.
Bush quacks like a duck.
That's all. It's not an outrageous accusation. It fits what I can see. It doesn't fit what you see. That's fine.
At some level you have to accept that "that's ridiculous" is the message *you* are bringing, to some people who think that the article is plausible.
And that makes you the one who needs to start with basic justification.
Because two people saying, "No, you're ridiculous" to one another is bad. And that's the standard you're setting.
At some level the demand for proof can kill discourse.
It's just as easy/hard to nag round earth scientists into inanity as it is to do the same to the flat earth society.
Why shouldn't I think Bush ignores reality?
He certainly doesn't see the things in reality that I see. I look at his abortion policy and see coathangers. I look at his Iraq policy and see endless preventable, unpunished evil. I look at the Patriot Act and see fear.
He sees the hand of God. Is this your God? Is this your reality?
What kind of proof are you even asking for?
Because there isn't much distance between 'you have to prove that he's been a bad President or you can't say it' and 'shut up'.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-17 12:51 am (UTC)Maybe one day when you grow up and have to live and work in the real world, and maybe even have to make sacrifices for other people, you'll realise just what a nearsighted jackass you are.
But somehow, I doubt it.