Ideology, not reality, drives White House

[Judi Lynn]

Ideology, not reality, drives White House


By CHARLEY REESE
Published Sunday, April 18, 2004
I fear that the Bush administration is severely learning-disabled.

Rational people, acting as individuals or as a group, learn from their mistakes. They gather data, they make decisions and they take actions. Then they assess the feedback from reality and adjust.

For example, if you rely on a person and learn that he or she has lied to you, then you get rid of that person. If you hire people to do a job and they fail miserably, then you fire them and replace them with more competent people. If your adviser predicts one outcome and the opposite outcome occurs, then you dump your adviser.

All of things have happened to the Bush administration, and it has acted as if they did not happen. Ahmed Chalabi, convicted bank embezzler and head of the Iraqi National Congress, practically has boasted that he and his group misled the United States to manipulate us to get rid of Saddam Hussein. He’s still listened to and is about to be put into power in Iraq.

The CIA, the FBI and the Defense Intelligence Agency all failed to detect signs of the impending Sept. 11, 2001, attack, which was easy to see was coming. Even I predicted a terrorist attack inside the United States in a column in August 2001. I had no idea what kind of attack it would be or when it would happen, but only a fool would imagine that we could meddle in Middle Eastern affairs and remain immune from blow-back.
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http://www.columbiatribune.com/2004/Apr/20040418Comm003.asp

[Ilsa]

1. Great article, JudiLyn, shared with three others just now...

Quote from within the article:

"Normally, when an individual disregards feedback from reality and keeps repeating the same actions that produce bad outcomes, he’s pronounced insane. In the case of the Bush administration, its behavior just tells us it is driven by ideology rather than by reality.

An ideologue shares a lot of traits with the insane. His ideology provides him with all the answers to all the questions. When reality throws up facts that don’t jibe with the ideology, he ignores reality and sticks with his ideology."

Sums up SHrub and the other neocons exceptionally well.