What if Karl Rove was right about the reality-based community?

Does reality matter in politics?

Karl Rove.
(Image credit: Illustrated | AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, Ekaterina_P/iStock)

I am haunted by Karl Rove — or rather by what may be the most notorious anonymous quotation from a senior official during the eight years that George W. Bush served as president of the United States. It's a quote that's been widely attributed to Rove, though the man himself has strenuously denied it. So maybe Rove didn't say the words. But unless the author of the essay in which it appeared, Ron Suskind, made it up out of whole cloth, someone in the Bush White House said it. And that is the person who haunts me.

I'm talking, of course, about the statement about the "reality-based community." Here it is in its entirety:

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.