The limits of Bush's mind

[IChing]

President Bush persists in his defense of the policies that have resulted in the decline of his fortunes.
In his recent rehearsed television conversation with 11 soldiers in Iraq, he said, "So long as I'm the president, we're never going to back down, we're never going ... to accept anything less than total victory." Twice he told them that the American people were behind them: "You've got tremendous support here at home." In an Associated Press poll taken in September, over half the public now says the Iraq war was a mistake.



What's happening? Is the man so insulated from the reality of events that he has come to believe his administration's propaganda? Or is there a more ominous and pervasive problem that calls into question something other than political ideology, that is influenced by a world view marked by an inability to reason logically and learn from experience?

The ability to reason accurately is not randomly distributed; some people are better at it than others. Though this is only one form of intelligence, it is an important one, and the lack of it tends to have adverse consequences on one's chances for success at tasks that require good decision-making.>>>>>snip
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.livingston25oct25,1,6169908.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. You can influence how you reason

If you abuse drugs or alcohol, I've been told, it can have an adverse effect on how you reason and how you view reality.

[undergroundpanther]

2. Depending on the drug

it can fuck up your sense of right and wrong. But bush is a psychopath regardless.

[IChing]

3. " to accept anything less than total victory."

sounds like something I heard before in history

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. It's the take-no-prisoners, "never admit a problem" attitude.

[Lisa]

5. and deriding the "reality-based community" is only a step away ...

As you say, they have this thing about admitting there's a problem (let alone that they are wrong about anything).

Bush is living in Topsy-Turvy world. Instead of induction (where you reach a conclusion after looking at the evidence), deduction triumphs -- where you make up a conclusion you like, then pick and choose evidence to fit it. For example, if you are trying to decide whether a prospective nominee (or the President himself, for that matter) is a good person, the inductive approach is to try to match that person's traits with a list of ideal characteristics. What Bush does is to start out assuming that the person is good, then cherry-pick stuff out of context to prop up his assertion. ("Of course I'm a good person, so whatever I choose to do is right ... never mind what the International Criminal Court or the Bible might say.")

At least Sherlock Holmes would modify his deduced theories if things didn't seem to work -- without that crucial ability, Bush just digs himself in deeper, grasping at more and more implausible straws.

[cassiepriam]

6. anybody got a free link?? Thx

[IChing]

7. here

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=23346&mode=nested&order=0

[cassiepriam]

8. Many thx