The Importance of Being Reality-Based

Kevin Drum today links to this article in the LA Times in which the author explains how corporations and the Bush administration, when faced with unfavorable scientific data, attempt to create doubt in the minds of the public about how valid or conclusive the data is:

An official at Brown & Williamson, a cigarette maker now owned by R.J. Reynolds, once noted in a memo: "Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the mind of the general public."

...

Among themselves, these product-defense lobbyists and their clients make no secret of what they're doing. Republican political consultant Frank Luntz wrote in a memo, later leaked to the press: "The scientific debate remains open.... Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly."

The objective of this strategy is to create inaction.  But they don't stop with science.

Conservatives have realized that this strategy can work on just about everything.  

They discredit the media every chance they get in order to ensure that the public has no confidence in the news media.  This goes way beyond discrediting individual reporters, as they did with Dan Rather.  This is literally about them claiming that the images we see on TV aren't true, such as when Tom Delay says: "Everybody that comes from Iraq is amazed at the difference of what they see on the ground and what they see on the television set."

They claim that the meaning of what we hear them say isn't what we think it is - such as Cheney claiming that by "last throes" he meant "a lot of violence", and Ken Mehlman asserting that Karl Rove wasn't talking about the Democratic Party.

They will lie and lie and lie without any regard for the facts, knowing full well that the media will give their lies equal time with the truth and won't bother telling the public which they should believe.

It has been said that inaction breeds doubt and fear, but it is also true that doubt and fear breed inaction.  That is their game.  They don't want an active, involved citizenry; they want a public that is so confused that they'll gladly hand over the keys to the guys saying "trust us, we know."

We need to make sure we don't let that happen.