What do you think of this Obama quote?

Bush made policy based on beliefs, not facts. They ignored science at every turn, and did their best to gut support for science.

Obama seeks to define himself differently. He is reasonable. Not superstitious. And yes, it is all of what you said.

Ohhhhhhh BURN
thats what i thought after reading the quote as well. :P

I don’t know it there’s any hidden subtext or not…but I LURVE it!

Yay!

What I meant to say is that it is refreshing to have a president that recognizes that there is a seperation of church and state.

Makes me lurve the guy even more.

Science-based policies. Obama is promoting a technocratic approach to policy-making, not a political approach to fact. As long as they don’t ignore the politics…

I think what hes saying is just that He will go by the facts, as opposed to the previous administration which went by what they believed in. I wouldnt call it a technocratic approach… He just wants people to know he will not interject his personal beliefs into politics too much, except for when facts are not clear.

I think there’s an implicit comparison to this:

Bush: Beyond Reason

By Robert Parry
October 19, 2004

Journalist Ron Suskind relates a chilling conversation he had in 2002 with a senior aide to George W. Bush, who taunted Suskind for being a person from “what we call the reality-based community.”

The Bush aide said this “reality-based community” consists of people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” Suskind nodded in agreement and muttered something favorable about the principles of the Enlightenment, only to be cut off by the aide.

“That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” the Bush aide told the journalist. “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 study what we do.”

In many ways, that quote – cited in Suskind’s New York Times Magazine article about Bush’s “faith-based presidency” – sums up the anti-rational arrogance that has become the hallmark of Bush’s inner circle, a group that apparently thinks that its actions transcend both law and reason.

________

The Bush aide is widely believed to be Cheney.

I’d rather have energy policy (or any policy, really) that’s based on the best knowledge we have at the time. It sure beats faith-based energy policy, which usually sounds like something between “we have faith that we’ll be able to keep going like this forever” and “well, it won’t be long until it doesn’t matter anyway.”

I took it as a dig and I was pleased by it. I do think he was drawing a distinction with the current administration.

It’s a dig.
I’m pleased by it.
And my heart swells, SWELLS with joy that we are returning to facts and science. Science is important. Education is important.

Ok, this makes me want to ask: how many of you are Democrats here? I mean on the site. It’s funny because in other question threads I also notice a much more liberal approach than I’d expect on most internet sites. It seems to me that 93% of the users here are Americans (something not unusual on the internet), but 85% of them are Democrats (something not supported by the election results).

Not that I have a problem with that, I just find it strange, especially after having been on the net long enough to meet everyone who ever voted for a member of the Bush family.

I’m checking in as “usually democrat, but whoever sounds best”. It’s almost always the dem, in fact it hasn’t been the republican yet—but it could be someday!

@Jack79: Sounds like a good question for Fluther. Post it man.

Dem, here. You’ll find that the site leans heavily to the left, though we have a few republicans who are quite active, too.

Same as EmpressPixie , just turns out dems are usually right lol.