White House Joins The "Reality-Based Community"?
Well, I for one feel badly let down. According to Robin Wright and Ellen Knickmeyer in the Washington Post, administration officials are now beginning to realize that Iraq may not end up becoming the peaceful, economically vibrant, stable democracy that we have been repeatedly told it is on the verge of becoming.
What's next? A cruel admission from the White House that humans evolved from apes? A statement by Dick Cheney that Halliburton consists of "a bunch of money-grubbing assholes committed to destroying America, and using our own tax dollars to do it"? A White House study that demonstrates that tax cuts for the extremely wealthy have actually contributed to our catastrophic budget deficits? A Presidential radio address in which he renames his Social Security plan the "Fuck 'Em, They're Old" (FETO) Program?
Mr. President, please do not start going down the reality-based road. There's really nothing down there for you. And, to be frank, I am able to keep my shit together emotionally only because I imagine the White House right now to be like the Hogwarts Academy or Willy Wonka's factory, a swirling rainbow wonderland of gnomes, magic potions, Oompa-Loompas, and Heritage Foundation reports, where people base policy on fabulously eccentric notions ("an omnipotent, omniscient being doesn't want us to have sex, so public health programs should be premised on chastity pledges"). If I start to think that your people are actually reading the newspapers and assessing real-world cause-effect relations, and that your team still comes up with the policies it does, I'm going to have to start mainlining Prozac.