President Bush may actually believe his own lies

[remfan]

This way of approaching the truth is irresponsible. Unfortunately, it is also familiar and seductive to many citizens of 21st century America.

It’s irresponsible, first of all, because it encourages one to avoid complexity and ambiguity, to avoid confronting information and perspectives that might compromise the strength of one’s convictions. Again, inside accounts of the Bush White House reveal a president rarely forced to grapple with perspectives at odds with his own. For instance, Bush famously doesn’t read newspapers.

Second, and perhaps most troubling, when truth is understood as a function of conviction, the self becomes the sole arbitrator of meaning.

One can easily maintain strong convictions about incompatible beliefs without feeling any compulsion to reconcile them, because their respective truth has nothing to do with their compatibility but only with the strength of one’s belief in them.

more...

http://www.wvgazette.com/section/Columns/200403238

[rooboy]

1. EXCELLENT ARTICLE . ... big kick. n/t

[MarianJack]

2. It's Rather Simple.

If you teach a child that 2 + 2 = 5, he/she has no basis to believe otherwise.

We have an absolute moron in the Oval Office. He is probably the most managed president ever, who is only spoon fed the information that his puppet-masters want him to receive.

I can imagine cheney. "NO, Mr. president, 2 + 2 really DOES = 5!"

[izzie]

3. Not a shock and we are the best country in the world seem to.....

be believed by all. Well we do top the world on money spent on our arms.So much for what you believe and what is real.

[JPZenger]

4. Excerpt from Column

Here's an excerpt from a column by Philadelphia Daily News writer John Baer about a political meeting in PA.:

"Friday night, President Bush's political guru, Karl Rove, speaks to an overflow GOP dinner crowd.

A Democratic operative warns me not to look directly into his eyes.

No problem. No journalists get near Rove. The White House declines requests for interviews. Might be questions about CIA leaks, WMD's, job loss, you know, unpleasant things.

Instead, Rove re-gives the State of the Union, which, if you recall, was, "Terrists, 9/11, tax cuts, terrists."

[Jack Rabbit]

5. Red herring

That's a red herring in terms of whether Bush should be voted out of office. If he has been deceived and believes the garbage he is spewing, then it can only be because his aides have conspired to hide the truth from him. If so, Bush needs to get rid of those who deceive him. Not one aide has been fired as a result of the WMD deception or the false claim that Saddam had terrorist connections.

The idea that the intelligence about Iraq actually supported a case for war but turned out to be faulty is nonsense. The OSP wasn't established to analyze intelligence; it was established to spin intelligence reports. Cheney and Libby didn't go to Langley to listen to what the CIA could tell them -- they could be briefed in the White House; they went to Langley to tell the CIA what to say. In spite of this, there was enough credible evidence in public to contradict the junta's case for war to justify a halt to plans for invasion.

There can be no serious discussion based on the premise that the invasion was based on a series of honest mistakes.

If Bush is deliberately lying, then it is charitable to call him "little more than an evil Machiavellian genius". A Machiavellian genius would find a way to get away with crimes. Bush has been caught. If he wins in November -- even fairly -- it will do the US little good in terms of maintaining its leadership in the world. Bush and his lieutenants cannot find any way to persuade others abroad to follow his approach to fighting terrorism except by calling them names if they don't; it doesn't matter if the object of their derision is a dictator, an elected leader or the voters of a nation who decide collectively to install a government that rejects Bush's lead.

It is obvious that the choice for American voters is really no choice at all. Bush must be removed. It doesn't matter who replaces him.

[skjpm]

6. Bush is like the American people

This is the dead-on truth that we are unwilling to face. This article describes not just Bush, but most Americans. That's why he wins. Getting rid of Bush will not change America. We need to start getting people to think based on facts.

[Karenina]

11. You said a mouthful.

*crusader bunnypants does indeed accurately reflect the collective consciousness of America. SO. VERY. SAD.

[ixion]

7. I don't think he should let Bush off the hook so easily

by chalking his lies up to 'Strong Beliefs'.

Chimpy's smirk tells the real story. He knows he is lying, and he likes it.

Case closed, IMHO.

Oh yeah, and another thing...

I have never accused the chimp of being an 'evil genius'. Evil, yes, but a genius? Far from it. :freak:

[scottws]

8. bush lies

I don't think Bush CARES if he lies or not - he knows he's merely an instrument in the Lord's hands, so anything can be excused if it advances his agenda.

[ixion]

9. yeah, I'm not even sure the 'Lord' has anything to do with it, either

I think he just enjoys lying.

Welcome to DU, scottws... glad to have you aboard. :hi:

[0007]

16. ....and the lord is the Carlyle Group and the selected money lords

[Lisa]

10. I'm sure he DOES believe all of this stuff ...

You know, like that Imperial stormtrooper in the first "Star Wars" movie -- he is so unused to self-examination that he is susceptible to "mind tricks" from the likes of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. Can you imagine any thinking, reasonable person with an active conscience being able to look at himself in the mirror after having been in Bush's position for the past couple of decades?

This is why he is able to sleep so well at night, in my opinion. Most of us couldn't.

How strongly he believes something ("my gut instinct") is automatically superior to how credible it is, or whether it's backed up by science or any other form of expertise. Of course, we all know this is twaddle, but he is such a solipsist that "who cares what you think?"

[Martin Eden]

12. Idiot or Liar? Either way, Bush is unfit for office

<<snip>>
Assuming, as seems reasonable, that the president of the United States was neither drunk nor on LSD, there can be only two possible explanations for this statement:

Explanation 1: The president of the United States believed what he said. In this case, he is so dim-witted and/or totally divorced from reality as to be mentally unfit to hold his current job — or, indeed, any job — and should be taken into medical care.

Explanation 2: The president did not believe what he said but, rather, believes (unfortunately not without compelling post-Sept.11 evidence) that the vast majority of the American people are so dim-witted and/or uninformed and the vast majority of the American media is so sycophantic and/or terrified of being branded “unpatriotic” (or simply losing White House “access”) that he can now tell any lie, no matter how obvious and outrageous, and get away with it. In this case, he is morally unfit to hold his current job and should, by constitutional means, be forced to relinquish it as soon as possible.

Either explanation should scare the wits out of anyone who is not comatose.

When a single individual combines ignorance, immorality, dry-drunk syndrome, a publicly proclaimed commitment to perpetual military domination of the entire world by his country, a publicly expressed belief that God personally instructs him to make war on specific countries and a wildly irrational born-again brand of Christianity that views the Battle of Armageddon and the consequent end of life on earth as desirable developments and, at the same time, has command authority over an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction more than sufficient to achieve the end of life on earth, it is difficult to argue that this individual is not the most dangerous person who has ever lived.

When (if ever) will the American people wake up to the real threat facing America and the world?

read the statement this commentary was responding to:
http://www.arabnews.com/services/print/print.asp?artid=30536&d=19&m=8&y=2003&hl=Idiot%20or%20Liar?%20Either%20Way,%20Bush%20Is%20Unfit%20for%20Office

[phantom power]

13. (1) is a lot scarier

I consider (1) a whole lot scarier, mostly because it implies that we cannot even rely on his own self-interest to mitigate his actions.

If it was (2), we could at least hope that his own self-interest would prevent him from unleashing total disaster, in order to save his own skin. But if it's (1), he'll happily drive himself over the cliff, along with all the passengers in the bus, never realizing what he's doing.

[Sugarbleus]

14. he is a sociopath. He is morally bankrupt. I heard a program where his

University Professor talked about what type of attitude Bush held while in his class. The professor said Bush never came to class prepared. Said they were discussing the issues surrounding the oil "shortage" in the 70's (long gas lines) and what/how the economy affects the struggling classes.
Apparently, Bush came out of left field with a diatribe stating that
The poor are poor because they are lazy. Bush stated, in class, that he thought welfare, social security, environmenalism,medicare et al was bad and shouldn't exist.

This is who we have in the white house. His professor said he wrote a piece on Bush during the 2000 election. He said Bush hadn't changed in his outlook and felt that if Bush was allowed to rule the country, Democracy would be destroyed. The Professor is a bright, gentle Japanese American.

LINKS if you're interested.

[Martin Eden]

15. yes, LINKS please

more ammo in my arsenal

[Sugarbleus]

17. Okay, here is what I posted a couple nights ago...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1277094

The link inside my post is to an archived radio broadcast. It will run out by end of week so go get it FAST. Follow the instructions in my post on how to get it. Good luck.

[Sugarbleus]

18. Here is a "hard copy" of this professors views of bush and

economics... Professor Yoshi Tsurumi

http://www.glocom.org/opinions/essays/20040301_tsurumi_president/
...............
At Harvard Business School, thirty years ago, George Bush was a student of mine. I still vividly remember him. In my class, he declared that "people are poor because they are lazy." He was opposed to labor unions, social security, environmental protection, Medicare, and public schools. To him, the antitrust watch dog, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Securities Exchange Commission were unnecessary hindrances to "free market competition." To him, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal was "socialism." Recently, President Bush's Federal Appeals Court Nominee, California's Supreme Court Justice Janice Brown, repeated the same broadside at her Senate hearing. She knew that her pronouncement would please President Bush and Karl Rove and their Senators. President Bush and his brain, Karl Rove, are leading a radical revolution of destroying all the democratic political, social, judiciary, and economic institutions that both Democrats and moderate Republicans had built together since Roosevelt's New Deal.
..............
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