BCT Editorial – 8/27/07

This page was last updated on August 27, 2007.

Unreal world; Editorial; Beaver County Times; August 27, 2007.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“The world according to Bush continues to become more unreal.

“In a speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the president tried to link the war against terrorism and the occupation of Iraq - which are two distinct entities - with World War II, the Korea War and the Vietnam War.

“In doing so, as The Chicago Tribune reported, he invited stinging criticism from historians and military analysts who said the analogies evidenced scant understanding of those conflicts’ true lessons.

“This disconnect comes as no surprise. This is, after all, a president and an administration that long has had contempt for the world outside its political and ideological bubble.

“Author Ron Suskind reported this Bush-based disdain for reality in an Oct. 17, 2004, article in The New York Times Magazine.”

[RWC] Mr. Suskind is an opinion writer and his “article” was an op-ed column.

“Suskind reported that in 2002 he had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush regarding an article he had written that the White House did not like. Suskind wrote in the 2004 article that the aide told him something ‘which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.’

“The conversation deserves to be quoted extensively.

“‘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.’”

[RWC] If you read the article, you’ll find at no point did Mr. Suskind name the alleged “senior adviser.” As regular readers know, I work under the assumption that anonymous sources are imaginary friends unless there’s a way to verify what they say. The fact Mr. Suskind and the editorial placed this stuff in quotes is meaningless unless Mr. Suskind has a tape recording of the conversation.

“Or pick up the pieces, as it were.

“These guys aren’t realists. They’re dreamers. They don’t seek the truth. They take refuge in truthiness, which comedian/commentator/seer Stephen Colbert has defined as the ‘quality of preferring concepts and facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.’”

[RWC] This is at least the ninth time since October 2004 editorials have afforded credibility to “The Daily Show,” or its spin-off “The Colbert Report.” As we all know, the Times is an expert on truthiness since it appears in most editorials.

“Bush’s VFW speech was an exercise in truthiness. Unfortunately, that’s been the hallmark of his administration, which goes a long way toward explaining the real-world mess that we’re in, and not just in Iraq.”

[RWC] Here’s the short version of the editorial. “We’re the only ones allow to make comparisons to Vietnam, etc.”