An organization called PIPA (the Program on International Policy Attitudes) seems to be at the center of defining the word "reality" as it is used in the term "Reality Based Community."

PIPA's Director, Steven Kull, described as "a political psychologist specializing in the study of public and elite attitudes on public policy issues" has this to say about American attitudes about the Iraq War:

It may seem contradictory that three quarters of Americans say that the US should not have gone to war if Iraq did not have WMD or was not providing support to al Qaeda, while nearly half still say the war was the right decision. However, support for the decision is sustained by persisting beliefs among half of Americans that Iraq provided substantial support to al Qaeda, and had WMD, or at least a major WMD program.

Is it reasonable, then, to pose the question whether it was "the right decision" to go to war then in light of information available today (and still incomplete) as a result of having fought the war?

Whether it would be the right decision today is in my view such a silly question that I'm amazed that so much time and energy was apparently spent asking it. Might as well ask whether it was the right decision to allow people to go to work in the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, knowing what we know now. To pose such a question would seem, well, out of touch with reality.

(Far be it from me to ask whether a leading political psychologist might be motivated by factors other than reality....)

MORE: Might the goal be education of the ignorant? Here's what Tim Worstall expects:

....teach-ins to explain to these pig-ignorant homophobes and evangelicals that their entire worldview is wrong and that their self-identification with ShrimpyMcBushChimp was all a delusion based upon their ignorance. (Via Glenn Reynolds.)