Bush's magic wand changes reality

Americans know by now that the Bush administration disdainfully rejects what it calls the "reality-based community." An unnamed senior aide for President Bush told a reporter in 2002 that the United States is "an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." He continued, "and while you're studying that reality ... we'll act again, creating other new realities ... . We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

And gosh, President Bush is trying; he really is trying.

Americans in the "reality-based community" only think things are going badly in Iraq. Forget the liberal media with their unpatriotic stories of religious infighting between Shiites and Sunnis, the repression of women under Islamic law, the intractable fights over oil and federalism. The Bush administration is creating a new reality. A wave of Bush's magic wand and American troops stop dying, peace comes to Iraq and democracy blooms in the desert.

Skyrocketing gas prices? We poor reality-based folks should feel pretty silly thinking the Bush energy bill won't help, that it mostly benefits big oil and does little to spur alternate energy sources. One wave of Bush's reality wand and a few holes in the Alaskan tundra solve all our so-called energy problems.

Finally, if Bush has his way, no child will be left behind in science class. Those befuddled, reality-based teachers who view evolution as a fundamental principle in biology will now have to make room for "intelligent design." Just another wave of the wand and the pseudoscience of George W. Bush, Bill Frist and The Augusta Chronicle becomes the new reality.

American troops returning soon from Iraq? Cheap American oil for the family Hummer? The next generation of humanoids already on God's drawing board?

You just have to close your eyes and believe hard enough.

Charles Heywood, Martinez