What's unclear to me in this scenario is to what extent and for how long spinners, in big-lie-consistent mode, are able to distort the reality inhabited by the reality-based community. Four years? eight? Indefinitely? Also unclear is whether there is any such thing as a spin-free zone. I've seen briefing books; the inflection of ideology diminishes as the audience for the privileged information grows from one to thirty or forty, then it increases again dramatically as the audience approaches 100. I could draw that function.

At the Corner Bistro last night, Chase shrugged off Tom Frank's book. The Appeal to Reason came out of Kansas, and had a circulation larger than the Nation's current base. Haven't read What's the Matter but I'd thought this was part and parcel of Frank's argument -- persuasion has undermined reason.

At some point the population not scrambled by the spin's magnetic field stops letting itself be the diversion.

Suicide bombing as a reciprocal distortion.

The taboo on theorizing suicide bombing's relation to power's distortions. Understanding someone's motives is not identical with assuming one is responsible for that other person's actions. Isn't it odd? This taboo assumes that our capacity for empathy is so strong that if we are tricked into feelings of guilt, we will destroy ourselves.

Fear is absolutely one of the great tools of leadership, to borrow incoherently from Machiavelli Sun-Tzu whomever. To use it, though, you have to disconnect from empathy -- correct me if I'm wrong, but that disconnection is what gets you diagnosed a psycho- or sociopath.

When we talk about political gamesmanship, are we talking about the DSM-IV? (Mutually Assured Destruction indeed.)

For example: Bin Laden's cocaine plot. Is that real? I mean, if the goal is to punish the US while destroying a source of Afghanistan's cash...