Salon: "You can't run the world on faith"

[kskiska]

Some Reagan conservatives decry Bush's "Messianic" approach and preference for dogma over evidence.

By James K. Galbraith

(snip)

Now 53, Bartlett said this the other day to Ron Suskind, as he reported in his New York Times magazine story:

"Just in the past few months, I think a light has gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush; that this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do ... This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalists. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them ... This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts ... He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms the need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence ... But you can't run the world on faith."

(snip)

(Paul Craig) Roberts is now a John M. Olin Fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. Here is part of the column he sent out on Oct. 15:

"Bush's supporters demand lock-step consensus that Bush is right. They regard truthful reports that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and was not involved in the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. -- truths now firmly established by the Bush administration's own reports -- as treasonous America-bashing ... In language reeking with hatred, Heritage Foundation Town Hall readers impolitely informed me that opposing the invasion of Iraq is identical to opposing America, that Bush is the greatest American leader in history and everyone who disagrees with him should be shot before they cause America to lose another war ... Bush's conservative supporters want no debate. They want no facts, no analysis. They want to denounce and to demonize the enemies that the Hannitys, Limbaughs, and Savages of talk radio assure them are everywhere at work destroying their great and noble country."

more…
http://salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/10/18/disillusioned_republicans/index.html

[knowbody0]

1. half of america is like the battered wife

who remains in her place believing things will get better, that he really loves her, and that he is taking care of her. no matter how badly he treats her she is too frightened to leave, he's taken away her ability to think

[MatrixEscape]

2. Excellent analogy! n/t