Reply #17: According to O'Neill's book, Rummy's attitude pervaded the WH also [View All]

[priller]

He said several times the attitude at the WH was something like, "No one really knows what will happen because of these policies, so why not just do something for our base?"

It struck me as a really anti-intellectual attitude, not merely discounting the advice of experts, but even doubting that there really even could be such a thing as an expert. "Who can know?"

Then I remembered the book "Trust Us, We're Experts", about how corporations pay people very well to set up phony research groups and put out reports and press releases giving their pseudo-expert opinion -- which just happens to be very corporate friendly. And I think, no wonder the Bushies discount real, learned advice, since they probably think all experts are are simply shilling for someone.