Inside Mr. Bush's Brain, Orwellian version

Needlenose remembers a certain similarity between the Bush White House and George Orwell's 1984:

Ron Suskind's chilling article in the New York Times Magazine on Dubya's "faith-based presidency" has plenty of people sitting up and taking notice. Joshua Marshall quotes this remark by former Environmental Protection Administration chief Christie Whitman:

In meetings, I'd ask if there were any facts to support our case. And for that, I was accused of disloyalty!

Others such as Matt Yglesias and Daily Kos, cite this disturbing passage:

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.''

It didn't take long for me to realize what this reminded me of:

You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident. When you delude yourself into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you. But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. . . . Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party.

Yes, you guessed right about the source -- George Orwell's 1984, the Bushites' instruction manual. And if they get four more years in power ...

I had always feared that the distopia of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was more likely than Orwell's 1984; now I'm not so sure.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)