winterbadger | really?

I'm reading this essay by Christopher Bassford, criticizing John Keegan's analysis of Carl von Clausewitz, and I'm puzzling over the idea that one (any one) would represent either "policy" or "politics" as being a solely rational endeavour. Certainly, in some ivory tower utopia, it might be please to think that the formation and execution of policy and the political process that determines both who plays the role of policy maker and how their policies are carried out are both rational. Who wouldn't like to think that the process of coming to important decisions and the implementation of those decisions would be rational?

But does anyone really believe that they *are*, in the real world? Surely not.