In the spirit of trying to put Humpty Dumpty together again, I’d like to see a number of simple changes made by the new administration, changes that will help restore constitutional government, changes that will support a return from Neocon American-chauvinist Imperialism to a more “reality based” style of governance.
In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn’t like about Bush’s former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House’s displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn’t fully comprehend — but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.
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.”
I’d like to propose a few simple changes that will improve the way our country works and the way we relate to each other. These are presented in no particular order. Each stands alone. Each is important. My simple change for today is:
RENAME THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
I have no clue what to call it, but the proto-fascist “Homeland” thing (see “Das Heimat”) has got to go. Probably the whole department needs reconstruction. Since they’re getting new letterhead stationery anyway, what with th enew secretary and all, wouldn’t the time be right for new name?
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