Two quotes - one from the Bush era:
The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that realityjudiciously, as you willwe'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 just study what we do."
The other from the Obama era:
"We have to take the world as we find it."
From Rove (allegedly) to Axelrod, we have the return to sanity. Some regard it as a transition from strength to wimpiness. But Bush's strength was brittle; and Obama's pragmatism needs to be judged on its long-term results.