# Bush/Cheney divide? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 9, 2005, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheney-divide/330139 "2005-11-09T00:33:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Trion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@Trion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trion)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheney-divide/330139/41 "2005-11-09T18:38:55Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > REALITY BASED COMMUNITY is the dumbest fucking concept I’ve ever heard. Really? That’s the dumbest concept you’ve ever heard? I envy you. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheney-divide/330139/42 "2005-11-09T18:47:18Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > Oh, come now, it can’t hold a candle to the “grave and gathering threat” posed by Iraq. I dunno, on the hierarchy of dumb there is a plateau where something is 100% dumb, it can’t be more than 100% dumb. So anything in that category is “The dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” yours rates as well. **ElvisL1ves** I hate to say it, but he has a really good point. I think there are a lot of people who just sit around contemplating and then talking shit about their contemplation, and they are no better than a man like Bush who acts without thinking. In the “Truth based community” we like to both think AND act. 😉 Erek ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheney-divide/330139/43 "2005-11-09T19:01:44Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > You do know who came up with it, don’t you? Here’s Ron Suskind: "The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’ I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.’ No human being on this planet has the right to be that arrogant. That guy should be strung up by his nads! ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheney-divide/330139/44 "2005-11-09T19:46:24Z")
> [@An Arky](#): > > ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.’ Eric Blair shudders in his grave. To have such abominable acumen … Stranger ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheney-divide/330139/45 "2005-11-09T20:33:33Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Heh. Even if he had been, of course, governing secretly through a popular puppet leader is one thing; governing openly as your own much-disliked self is harder. Is Dan Quayle available? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheney-divide/330139/46 "2005-11-09T21:11:04Z")
It does make me chuckle that we’re an empire, we don’t need silly things like empiricism. Erek ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheney-divide/330139/47 "2005-11-09T21:57:39Z")
Empiricist Yanqui dog! ---
**Author:** ![a35362](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@a35362](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a35362)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheney-divide/330139/48 "2005-11-09T22:04:36Z")
I’m no Bush supporter, but the article that **Kimstu** linked to sounds pretty bizarre to me. I thought these guys never leaked nuttin’ to nobody. Now they’re sharing how Bush is completely out of control and blanking out? I don’t buy it. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheney-divide/330139/49 "2005-11-09T22:07:49Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Ok, first thing I gotta say: > > REALITY BASED COMMUNITY is the dumbest fucking concept I’ve ever heard. I watched for the last five years as Liberals talked about how much smarter they were than conservatives as the conservatives outsmarted them again and again. Neither side has been particularly “reality based” for the past five years. > > Ok, on to the next thing. Bush is melting down, but Cheney’s base is crumbling. The entire executive is going down, it’s not just an insane president, it’s a fractured executive through and through. > > Soldiers have free will. Cheney could not institute martial law even if he took power. Being president doesn’t make one god of the universe, they have to have the support of the populace to govern, something Cheney wouldn’t have. > > Last but not least, if Cheney tried to take Bush out due to mental instability, we’d start seeing new evidence come to light that would be enough to indict Cheney. Cheney cannot stay in the administration without Bush. > So the thing that really disturbs me is that now is the best time to attack. If I were Osama bin Laden, I’d hit before the year is out, while we have a shattered executive that won’t be able to come up with a coherent retaliatory plan. That’s what I am really worried about. This partisan hackery is all useless whingeing as far as I’m concerned. > > Erek No, they didn’t outsmart anyone. They lied, made personal attacks, called people traitors, covered up, leaked, any and every dirty trick they could use. Reality based community? Where is/was the reality in all the crap Bush and his cronies have said/spewed/done these past years? Where for that matter is ther any damn truth? Now is the time to attack? Yeah. 9/11. America haters coming to get us. Grave and gathering danger. How much longer do we have to heart this fucking bullshit every time anyone raises a question or notices that things are seriously out of whack? And it’s only partisan when it comes from one side. Besides, Osama isn’t important. Bush said so himself. he used to be, then he wan’t, then he was(?) Flip flop flip flop. But, I guess anyone who doesn’t toe the party line is helping Osama, and so is a traitor. Knock off the rightwing partisan horse shit. Mkay? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheney-divide/330139/50 "2005-11-09T22:29:57Z")
I’m not right wing. 😉 Again like I said the issue isn’t partisan hackery. The issue is that a broken executive would have trouble responding to a credible threat. What does this have to do with parties? I don’t like either party. I heard really stupid shit out of liberal mouths about how much smarter they were than red states. THe red states aren’t more moral, and the blue states aren’t smarter, that’s all I’m saying. They are equally moral and intelligent. But again, this isn’t a partisan issue, the issue is the broken executive. It’s too bad the partisanship is obfuscating that. Erek ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheney-divide/330139/51 "2005-11-09T22:56:11Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > I’m not right wing. 😉 > > Again like I said the issue isn’t partisan hackery. > > The issue is that a broken executive would have trouble responding to a credible threat. What does this have to do with parties? > > I don’t like either party. I heard really stupid shit out of liberal mouths about how much smarter they were than red states. I agree! Both parties stink on ice. My stance is that our executive (the person himself) is broken and has been for quite a while, and so are his closest appointees and advisors. I would further say that he has not proven himself worthy of any more slack than he’s already been given, he’s already tossed away any respect he may have once deserved, and that he’s already cost us all our standing in the “international community”. > [@mswas](#): > > THe red states aren’t more moral, and the blue states aren’t smarter, that’s all I’m saying. They are equally moral and intelligent. I tend to agree, but I still have a few nagging memories that the pro-Bush people and their states did portray themselves as being more moral and having more values. So, while I agree with what you say about neither side having the upper hand, it’s hard to let go of that one - just on stubbornness. > [@mswas](#): > > But again, this isn’t a partisan issue, the issue is the broken executive. It’s too bad the partisanship is obfuscating that. > > Erek That last got my attention mostly because this “rally round the flag” or “rally round the prez” keeps getting run up the flagpole. There is no solid reason to feel loyalty or admiration for the very person I see as the one who created our mess to begin with. Any time there is a problem, partisanship comes up in the “with me or against me” or the “America hater” form. The Bush presidency could be easily summed up by the words “rabid partisanship”. There is no reason to continually support an incompetent. That is not partisanship. If the administration is self destructing, they did it to themselves and they get no pity from me. That is not partisanship. Their own blind arrogance and incompetence is what will get them in the end. Meanwhile each and every time things do not go his way, he invokes loyalty, 9/11 and terror again. Some of us see through it. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheney-divide/330139/52 "2005-11-09T23:10:52Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > Any time there is a problem, partisanship comes up in the “with me or against me” or the “America hater” form. The Bush presidency could be easily summed up by the words “rabid partisanship”. There is no reason to continually support an incompetent. That is not partisanship. C’mon, man. He’s a “uniter, not a divider”. He said so himself, so it must be true. Obviously you’re a divider. Why do you hate America? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheney-divide/330139/53 "2005-11-09T23:41:37Z")
I’m not pitying THEM, I am pitying US. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2005, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheney-divide/330139/54 "2005-11-10T00:15:44Z")
I can agree that while I experience schadenfreude at this GOP administration’s current problems, I do NOT want Bush to weakened to the point of not actually being able to answer the red phone or something. That’s about as charitable as I can be with that man. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2005, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheney-divide/330139/55 "2005-11-10T03:16:47Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > THe red states aren’t more moral, and the blue states aren’t smarter, that’s all I’m saying. Just curious, but how do you view the PIPA report? ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2005, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheney-divide/330139/56 "2005-11-10T11:13:40Z")
> [@ShibbOleth](#): > > C’mon, man. He’s a “uniter, not a divider”. He said so himself, so it must be true. Obviously you’re a divider. Why do you hate America? I thought it was “unificator” ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2005, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheney-divide/330139/57 "2005-11-10T16:09:40Z")
> [@ShibbOleth](#): > > C’mon, man. He’s a “uniter, not a divider”. He said so himself, so it must be true. Obviously you’re a divider. Why do you hate America? I can’t help it. I’m just an America hating, freedom hating, evil bastard. It’s what I do. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![a35362](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@a35362](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a35362)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2005, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheney-divide/330139/58 "2005-11-10T16:36:12Z")
The only way I could see Bush’s inner circle turning on him would be by supposing that he has successfully built up such a rough, macho culture around him that “loyalty” (meaning, “Don’t question me”) goes out the window when the young wolves smell that the alpha male is bleeding… ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2005, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheney-divide/330139/59 "2005-11-10T17:41:59Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > Just curious, but how do you view the PIPA report? I just read it. It says in a nutshell, that the people most vocal about supporting Bush have no clue what they are talking about, and they do not let facts get in the way. It’s pretty damning. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2005, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheney-divide/330139/60 "2005-11-10T18:56:28Z")
> [@Analysis of PIPA](#): > > So why is this the case? And, more specifically, why are Bush supporters **clinging so tightly to beliefs that have been so visibly refuted**? As discussed, one key possible explanation for why Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had WMD or a major WMD program, and supported al Qaeda is that **they continue to hear the Bush administration confirming these beliefs**. > > Another possible explanation is that Bush supporters cling to these beliefs because they are necessary for their support for the decision to go to war with Iraq. Asked whether the US should have gone to war with Iraq if US intelligence had concluded that Iraq was not making WMD or providing support to al Qaeda, 58% of Bush supporters said the US should not have, and 61% assume that in this case the president would not have. **To support the president and to accept that he took the US to war based on mistaken assumptions is difficult to bear, especially in light of the continuing costs in terms of lives and money. Apparently, to avoid this cognitive dissonance, Bush supporters suppress awareness of unsettling information**. > > This tendency of Bush supporters to ignore dissonant information extends to their perceptions of world public opinion. Despite an abundance of evidence that world public opinion has opposed the US going to war with Iraq, only 31% of Bush supporters are aware that this is the case, and only 9% are aware that Kerry is a more popular candidate than Bush in world public opinion. > > … > So why do Bush supporters show such a resistance to accepting dissonant information? While it is normal for people to show some resistance, **the magnitude of the denial goes beyond the ordinary**. Bush supporters have succeeded in **suppressing awareness of the findings of a whole series of high- profile reports about prewar Iraq that have been blazoned across the headlines** of newspapers and prompted extensive, high-profile and agonizing reflection. The fact that a large portion of Americans say they are unaware that the original reasons that the US took military action–and for which Americans continue to die on a daily basis–are not turning out to be valid, are probably **not due to a simple failure to pay attention** to the news. Side comment. Among the most vocal Bush supporters and Kerry haters that I personally know, they ALL continue to point fingers at those of us in the “fact based community”, and steadfastly refuse to read copies of any reports that I personally have offered to give them - FBI, CIA, Downing Street, anything that says They Are Wrong. Yet, they take anything from Freeper or O’Reilly or Limbaugh as absolute gospel. I don’t even try to argue or convince them anymore, I just tell them to shut the fuck up and keep their opinions to themselves. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheney-divide/330139.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheney-divide/330139.md?page=4)