The [Bush] 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.'' Who besides guys like me are part of the
reality-based community? Many of the other elected officials in
Washington, it would seem. A group of Democratic and Republican members
of Congress were called in to discuss Iraq sometime before the October
2002 vote authorizing Bush to move forward. A Republican senator
recently told Time Magazine that the president walked in and said:
''Look, I want your vote. I'm not going to debate it with you.'' When
one of the senators began to ask a question, Bush snapped, ''Look, I'm
not going to debate it with you.'' [more ]
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