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Thanks.

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
by Ted Welch (tedwelch-at-mac-dot-com) on Thu Apr 24th, 2008 at 04:19:01 AM EST
[ Parent ]
<BLOCKQUOTE>  Coming upon those words from the movie not long ago, it was hard not to recall a remark made by a Bush administration official to the reporter Ron Suskind: "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." <BLOCKQUOTE/>

That is a famous quote of mind boggling arrogance.

Has it ever been revealed, definitively, who made the quote?

by Jagger on Fri Apr 25th, 2008 at 03:40:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]

From a brief check on Google, it doesn't seem so - one guess is Karl Rove, which seems plausible.

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
by Ted Welch (tedwelch-at-mac-dot-com) on Fri Apr 25th, 2008 at 05:59:59 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Another repeated nominee is Dick Cheney.

Capitalism searches out the darkest corners of human potential, and mainlines them.
by geezer in Paris (risico at wanadoo(flypoop)fr) on Wed May 7th, 2008 at 03:48:06 AM EST
[ Parent ]
... term is hubris, "extreme (or "overweening") pride, especially when considered a tragic flaw."


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Tue May 6th, 2008 at 10:40:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]
... technical term is hubris, "extreme (or "overweening") pride, especially when considered a tragic flaw."


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Tue May 6th, 2008 at 10:41:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Yes. Cf.:

The Hubris Syndrome
Bush, Blair and the Intoxication of Power
David Owen

A powerful analysis of Bush and Blair's style of government, from a respected politician and medical doctor, offering revealing personal insights and a devastating critique

For many politicians, power seems to go to their head, and becomes a heady drug affecting every action they take. The Greeks called it hubris, where the hero wins glory, acclaim and success - but it is often followed by nemesis.

David Owen suggests George Bush and Tony Blair developed a Hubristic Syndrome while in power. He provides a powerful analysis, looking at their behaviour, beliefs and governing style, in particular the nature of their hubristic incompetence in handling the Iraq War. Both of them, and in her last year in office, Margaret Thatcher, developed many of the tell-tale and defining symptoms.

A statesman, politician and medical doctor, with personal knowledge of the war in the Balkans, David Owen has unique insight into Blair's premiership, including several meetings and conversations with Blair from 1996-2004. With his long political experience, Owen has written a devastating critique of the way that Bush and Blair manipulated intelligence and failed to plan for the aftermath of taking Baghdad. Their messianic manner, excessive confidence in their own judgement, and unshakeable belief that they will be vindicated by a 'higher court', have doomed what the author believes could have been a successful democratic transformation of Iraq.

http://www.politicospublishing.co.uk/titles.php/itemcode/178



Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
by Ted Welch (tedwelch-at-mac-dot-com) on Tue May 6th, 2008 at 05:06:52 PM EST
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