Dr. Sanity has some thoughts about the "reality-based" community.

It's funny, Simberg was so quick to jump on the
Jamil Hussein scream fest, but he's being so quite
on the case of the Iraqi police being accused of rape.

Where is Simberg the patriot screaming that this woman
is a liar, and a terrorist?

Err, maybe because she might be telling the truth, unlike the AP?

To be honest, this is the first I've heard of it, so I guess the MSM isn't paying much attention to it, either.

If they're guilty, lock them away; if they're not, put them back on the force.

Assuming "Dr. Sanity" is for real, he probably should apply these techniques to himself. Demonizing "the left" as having "psychological denial" doesn't mean much. That's too big and diverse a group to characterize so specifically. This try looks flaky or disingenuous to me. Remember for any grouping of people, you're far more likely to hear the shrill and extreme than the quiet (and sane) main body. Attempting to analyze the psychology of the group based on the outliers is a terrible idea. That appears to me to be precisely what he's doing here.

I get the impression from reading a lot of blogs that there's a lot of political bloggers on the web with psychological issues - denial would be just the tip of the iceberg (and yes, I think my glass house looks pretty too). In that light, we have here an analysis of an entire realm of political opinion, an inappropriate claim to authority (claims to be a psychiatrist) and come up with a trite but soothing conclusion. That doesn't sound to me like something a professional psychiatrist would do. It's a bit irresponsible and irrational.

While I recognize that the point of the story was to introduce the notion of "psychological denial", I find it interesting that he defines the term, jumps into a demonization of "the left", and then finishes up with a brief discussion of his fitness to make such a judgement. If you agree that "the left" has made common cause with an implacable enemy that wants to kill us all, then I guess there's no real problem here. But if you're not, this guy hasn't even tried to convince you. The key thing he fails to demonstrate is that some recongizable version of the left actually is "denying" some version of reality. But the reasoning in this article is more flawed than that.

For example, he says "The denier must then place the blame for the unacceptable reality" and embeds a generic link to Fox News Sunday. Huh? I didn't follow up all his links, so maybe some of them are appropriate, but few I looked at seemed to be non sequiturs like this. They had some vague relation to the assertion of the moment, but I couldn't see what conclusion you were expected to make from them.

So to list the symptoms, we have a shoddy argument in the form of "safe technical discussion, unfounded rant, appeal to authority", someone who doesn't seem to be able to (or perhaps doesn't understand the need to) link to relevant material, and who asserts to be a psychiatrist, but makes claims that a professional psychiatrist wouldn't make. Given my years, nay decades, of experience as an opinionated internet blowhard, I decree this article to be *noise*.

There may be indeed a serious reality denial effort among "the left" that isn't reciprocated among everyone else. But this article doesn't help figure that out.

Karl,
I'm not convinced that the good Doctor is right about Dem Denial either. I think they know what they are doing, I think that they care more for destroying GWB than for our countries longevity and I think they'd shoot themselves, and us, in the foot if they thought GWB would feel it.

That's not denial, it's evil. They don't mind hurting all of us to get at the President. Evil.

Assuming "Dr. Sanity" is for real, he probably should apply these techniques to himself.

"Dr. Sanity" is Dr. Pat Santy--a former NASA psychologist. She's a she.

I enjoyed the column...

the problem is that this kind of "child like' thing is left and right...

I dont remember how many times in the clinton years I was told "If only we can get rid of that lying jerk then things will be fine"...Bush campaigned in 00 on "restoring honor to The White House"...

Now it is the lefts turn to act "childish"...and they are certianly doing it.

But part of that has been aided by an administration which has performed in almost "everything" subpar. I knew that we were "in for it" with the EP 3 incident...but Iraq is the EP3 incident in spades...ie know one at the administration has been in the land of reality until recently.

Bush seems to always have a strong "4th quarter" and maybe he will have one here. We all have to hope.

When he was in Iraq last, he did something that is very un Bush like. It has not gotten much coverage...but it was a (in my view) significant event. He met with all the "big shots" but apparantl at random he pulled people from E-1's to O-6's into one on one meetings.

And the rumor was that they were "permission to speak freely no foul" meetings. The rumor is that he got an earful. I would imagine.

The people on the far left, the Edwards, Murtha's Biden all those jerks who went along with sending the US to Iraq and now have changed their mind are all runninng for the George McClellan seat in history.

They are not in denial...they are in retreat.

Robert

I concur with Karl that the S/N ratio of the post wasn't particularly high. Anybody who lived in Texas in the '90s knows how similar CDS was to BDS.

Having said that, the RBC descended into self-parody long ago. A claim to be "reality-based" is now invariably followed by a barrage of politically-correct fantasy. The "reality-based community" thinks nuclear power and pharmaceutical companies are Eeeevil and space exploration takes money away from The Children. But they support science! -- about the same way they Support The Troops.

My apologies to Dr. Sanity on getting her sex wrong. Unfortunately, it doesn't change the rest of my post. Assuming Dr. Sanitiy is who she says she is, it really is surprising to see such work coming from someone with that background.

Oh, and here's Top Sunni official fired over rape case, so Simberg can fail to denounce Bad Things In Iraq and thereby prove that he's Eeeevil too. ;^)

Oh, and here's Top Sunni official fired over rape case, so Simberg can fail to denounce Bad Things In Iraq and thereby prove that he's Eeeevil too. ;^)