Good grief, Mr. Hart. Human perception always "edits reality". Anyone who denies that truth is no realist. Just another objectivity zealot.

"the democratization of Iraq, opposition to stem cell research and abortion, and reform of Social Security" Reality is: there were no ways to prevent Saddam from rearming or developing WMD, the thing that Iran is developing now, after sanction was lifted, Bush had to gamble on a 'preventive strike'. Reality is: Bush did not oppose to stem cell research, he objected to 'embryonic' stem cell reserach; because of his objection, now scientists harvest stem cells from inside a patient's nose, from cord blood, from bone marrow, and from various other places without creating an industry of creating and harvesting embryos, making women embryo-producing, baby-killing factories. Reality is: Social Security is going broke without reform, we only have to look to the Europeans to see where our Soc. Sec. is heading; private soc.sec. acct. ensures us, especially those who would die before retirement age, to retain some of our own money, perhaps to pay for our own funerals without causing our love ones an arm and a leg. Bush is a realist, Hart is an idealouge who does not recognize the world has changed, reality has changed.

In RE: Iraq.
So reality would have been to continue doing what we had been doing, even though that had been shown to be a failed policy?

That isn't reality, that's insanity.

What's interesting about this is that it requires that a large number of people Prof. Hart works with be similarly classified as ideologues, not conservatives.

Matt:

The strange thing is that it makes him the only conservative ever to long for the days of George HW Bush, the most status quo president this side of Ike.

This seems to be a familiar tactic: I heard a number of people defining themselves as the "reality based" community before the last election. Of course, they weren't any better at reality than anyone else, but they were good at leaping to conclusions, and very good at saying clever things that sounded like justifications without bothering to supply reasons. Sadly, this sort of clever conversation is enough for a career (see Maureen Dowd), and more than enough to be considered insightful (see Brad DeLong).