Mark Green: W's Reality Gap

[Dudley_DUright]

George W. Bush is different, very different. Other presidents have misled, deceived, even lied. When Ike was asked his worst mistake, he candidly said, "The lie we told ." LBJ and the Gulf of Tonkin were examples of both deception and self-deception.

The problem today is not simply that "Bush is a liar." While only he knows whether he's intentionally saying untrue things, it is a provable fact that he says untrue things, again and again, on issues large and small, day in and day out. The problem is not "16 words" in last year's State of the Union but 160,000 words on stem cells, global warming, the "death tax," the Iraq-9/11 connection and the Saddam-al Qaeda connection, the rise of deficits, cuts to Americorps, the air in downtown Manhattan after 9/11. On and on. It is beyond controversy that W "has such a high regard for the truth," as Lincoln said of a rival, "that he uses it sparingly."

Why this penchant for falsehoods?

First, George W. Bush begins any policy consideration with three fundamental questions: What does the religious right want? What does big business want? What do the neo-conservatives want? If he has stood up to any of these core supporters in the past three years, examples don't come readily to mind. Convinced by political advisor Karl Rove that the way to a second term is to "activate the base," his policy process is more catechismic than empiric – instead of facts leading to conclusions, conclusions lead to "facts."

more...

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17907

[acmavm]

1. Bush* and reality have never had anything in common, and never will.

He lives in some kind of fantasy world where he pictures himself as this white knight on a white horse on a quest to find the holy grail. He's nuts, that's all.

[starroute]

2. Politics can't explain how totally out of touch with reality he is

It's not that he makes promises and breaks them. Or that he oversells things like his tax cuts. It's not even that he lies about stuff like the supposed Iraqi WMD's, where he can say later that he was misled.

It's that he states things which are clearly false and which anybody who's been keeping track already knows are false. Like seeing the first plane hit the WTC on tv. Or like Saddam refusing to let inspectors in.

I don't have a clue as to what could be going through his mind when he makes these statements -- and especially when he repeats them multiple times. Most liers only lie when they think they might get away with it. Bush doesn't even seem to care, and that's what's so weird.

[belle]

3. Yeah, I think you have to turn to psychology to really get a grip on him..

Abnormal psych, that is.

There is something fundamentally wrong with him, though. I wouldn't have said that about his father or even Nixon--he was evil and paranoid, but not as fundamentally out of touch as this guy. Can you see Bush going to China? Even now, much less then? Reagan...well, Reagan. At least it was a more cheerful sort of insanity, at least on the surface.