Daniel Dennett also quotes this comment of Rove's in a talk at the Atheist Alliance Convention 2007 http://www.atheistalliance.org/
See also The Trap, The Power of Nightmares, and The Century of the Self (documentaries by Adam Curtis)on Rovian reality.
For Palin, maybe Stepford Wives?

I show the Adam Curtis movies in my sociology courses. Really fine work there. It's great that they're available for free download on google video.

Thanks for adding the refs.

Jeremy

Funny...when I see your pic and read your work you seem "creepy"to me. That's my perspective. It's sad how some people can rejoice/wish for others to "fall hard" because they have different ideas. There is a famous saying somewhere that says "treat others as you would want to be treated" I am happy that the Palin haters didn't get their wish on thursday. By the way, I'm a middle-class, hardworking mother of two and a working RN who would love to see Sarah as VP and there are a lot more of us out there! So I say, YOU GO GIRL! and to you I say don't wish bad things on people because it might come back your way. Have a nice day.

You may have missed my point. I wished she fell certainly not because she's a woman but because she does represent the Rovian reading of reality which I think will be bad for RN's and children. But time will tell.

You imply that I'm among the haters in the world and that you represent a different kind of person one who is tolerant loving and accepting of people regardless of what they think. Certainly not well represented in what Palin has said so far of the opposition.

We all have strong opinions. I've heard yours. Tolerance is treated as a absolute virtue but it can't be. If it is then the admonition becomes that one should always be intolerant of intolerance. A standard stonewalling move made by people on the left and right is to protest against intolerance as you have protested mine here. How can I be so intolerant? I could say the same about Palin who is radically intolerant and proud of it. The question of course is always one of what one should and shouldn't be tolerant of. Would it be wrong for the North to be intolerant of the South's commitment to slavery? Is it wrong to be intolerant of Hitler? We pick our battles and in the end time will tell. We'll know what works and what doesn't. The Right in recent years has accumulated various ways of stopping debate when it gets uncomfortable. Try the various ways in which Palin dismissed Biden for living in the past. The past is all we have to go on. She knows that. She harked back all the time to McCain and Obama's records. But when she didn't like references to Bush or the Republican strategies of the past which she has heartily endorsed for the most part, she argued as though there's a moral principle that one should never do that. It's a double standard touted as virtue itself and it's creepy. But more to the point look where it has gotten us. A nation under the spell of double standards touted as universal virtues has been led by Republicans to its current sorry state. Dwelling in the future, not the past I do wish her failure in this election just as she and you wish Obama failure. So, no I'm not tolerant of double-standard moralizing selectively disguised as universal moralizing. Instead feel free to be intolerant you're way. I'll continue to be intolerant my way and its a good thing we live in a democracy where such conflicting views can be vented.

Must have been fun to toss that off too. Of course politicians spin and we do too. You're very good at it, but what's your point? Do you have a critique of my argument or are you simply arguing that I'm fulminating without an argument? I'd be interested in your critique of my argument regarding the two definitions of reality if you've got one.

Jeremy

I like your article. Yes, there are different definitions of reality. But, as Alexander McCall Smith's tiny prodigy Bernie wonders--do people really not believe in the objective reality of the Bernoulli principle when they are flying on a plane?

I have been thinking about why this woman punches all my buttons. I finally realized that she reminds me of the little fundamentalist girls in grade school who cheerfully told me I was going to hell. Actually, they were cheerfully wishing me off to hell because I didn't share their world view. That is pretty nasty stuff and one reason I look back at those years without nostalgia. But, that behavior wasn't limited to little fundamentalist girls. A friend heard the VP candidate for the first time and said that she sounded like one of the "mean girls" at her school. She also has the unearned arrogant confidence of a some pretty girls. (Not all, but some.)

So, I put the energy from my push buttons to good use. I donated more money to Obama and started canvassing. :-) Where or not people perceive her as "real," she's a nightmare to me. Yup, I don't use her name. Sort of like how people perceive a certain character in Harry Potter--but that's the other person you mentioned--you know the master strategist behind GWB.

Laura, obviously we do have different backgrounds and leanings, and obviously at one level we both honor each other's preferences. A live and let live strategy is the preferred strategy isn't it? Problem is, it's easiest to apply it when the consequences of our choices don't affect each other. I mean we can be completely tolerant of people's actions at a distance, but if we live with them, then there is going to be some give and take, some situations in which we'll struggle against each other, competing for dominance on one issue or another. To take an RN example: A young child has a potentially terminal disease. There are two mutually exclusive risky and potentially life saving courses of treatment and the parents disagree about which one to adopt. Not adopting one is very likely to lead to death. This is an example of a situation in which "agreeing to disagree" is not an option. Yes the two parents can love and respect each other, honoring each other's preferences, but in a situation in which you can't employ both options and the consequences are shared, you've got to have debate.

Twice you've been shocked and dismayed at the lack of tolerance from those of us who oppose Palin. Imagine if the husband in the case above, told the wife that it was shocking how negative she was being about his preferred treatment. She should be more tolerant he says. If I were that wife, I would feel some ambivalence at that point. On the one hand I hate to be intolerant. On the other hand, his argument for tolerance seems misplaced. Tolerant yes but he's in the middle of a productive argument with me, and his intolerance of my intolerance seems more like a way to win than something either of us should practice. I call them butterfly punches. I'll post an article about them today.

Honestly Laura you seem no more tolerant of opposition to Palin than I or other's seem tolerant of her. And that's fine. We're in a high-stakes intimate debate in this nation about two very different directions to go.

I did note in your "shocked and appalled" reaction to Clare that your focus was very much on Palin (You go girl) issues. So my Freudian slip or not, you've made it clear that her gender is an issue for you. I've had more women bosses than men bosses. I'm kind of surprised by how much affirmative action the Republicans are invoking in their support for Palin. Especially since high on McCain's agenda would be replacing the liberal supreme court justices so as to eliminate affirmative action once and for all. I was a major Hillary supporter because I liked what she stood for. I will not forget that we're talking about decision makers not genders or genitalia in this election. Why not focus on Palin's political views? Why say she deserves to be treated more kindly? Because she's a woman? "Mean girls" is less the point than simply "Mean."

I find it amusing that in the heap of content-free rhetoric supplied by Steve M is the argument that I shouldn't pick on the little RN. Because you're a woman? I honor you as an a thinking debating equal. It's that double standard morality thing I keep coming back to. Use whatever moral argument comes easiest to hand to shame people who disagree with you. Don't worry at all about being consistent in your application of it.

May we decide what's best for our nation and your children guided by one objective: Doing what's best for them.

The Government accounting office estimates that with McCain's take plan the richest .1% of the population will get a tax cut of 12% whereas with the Obama plan they'll get a 1% tax increase. That's one of many many factors to consider. But I worry for people who are taken in by Palin's comments such as:

"You know what? It's time that normal Joe Six-Pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency.' I think that that's kind of taken some people off guard, and they're out of sorts, and they're ticked off about it, but it's motivation for John McCain and I to work that much harder to make sure that our ticket is victorious, and we put government back on the side of the people of Joe Six-Pack like me, and we start doing those things that are expected of our government, and we get rid of corruption, and we commit to the reform that is not only desired, but is deserved by Americans."

Jeremy

I am a Canadian, and I currently live in China, so although your politics affects me. I have no say or influence over it. I am a pure cynic when it comes to politics, and actually favour the Communist system when I see how elections are done in the USA.

After reading Jeremy's writing for a while and looking at his pattern of thinking. It is interesting to see how other article he has written have played out over the course of the discussion here. The concept of levels, of deciding who is right. Decided vs deciding. I don't agree with everything he says, but at least it makes me think about my own perspectives. I like to be challenged to think in a new way.

"America is the oldest young nation. Young in the fact that it has not been around very long, old in the fact that it will not last"
- G.K. Chesterton - "Orthodoxy"

Good luck with the elections in November. Please choose the lesser of two evils. Because I don't think 'good' describes any of your options.