Everyone needs to read Ron Suskind’s latest article on Bush. I quote:
[While discussing who would act as a nonpartisan peacekeeper in Gaza, it was mentioned that] Scandinavian countries were viewed more positively. [Senator Tom] Lantos went on to describe for the president how the Swedish Army might be an ideal candidate to anchor a small peacekeeping force on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden has a well-trained force of about 25,000. The president looked at him appraisingly, several people in the room recall.
”I don’t know why you’re talking about Sweden,” Bush said. ”They’re the neutral one. They don’t have an army.”
Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: ”Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They’re the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.” Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.
Bush held to his view. ”No, no, it’s Sweden that has no army.”
The room went silent, until someone changed the subject.
Or, later, Suskind’s meeting with a senior official:
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.
Now, I prefer fact-based leadership to blind guessing, but hey, take your pick. You are, after all, as certain as I. The difference is that I am right, because I have relied on facts, and you are wrong, because you have gone with a hunch. But hey, certainty is what matters, right?
Secretly Ironic 