"What we are perceived to be is not what we are.
"Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq," he wrote, "reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia".
I think that the national media have seized upon this debate here in Central Texas because we are perceived to be a harbinger of things to come.
And of course the corollary also holds: if we are perceived to be in dire straights, no one wants to spend or invest, and we become poorer.
"It could become next to impossible if the UK is simultaneously seeking to disengage from substantial existing commitments, especially if we are perceived to be blocking closer integration in projects we are not part of.
"Whether we wanted to or not, we were perceived to be the ambassadors of our faith".
We think our value lies in what age we are perceived to be rather than in empirical measurements of how we're performing and what we're experiencing.
At one point we were in a helicopter on a tour of a rig called the Nautilus and were told if we got any closer we would be perceived to be a threat and they were going to defend themselves.
The more organized our thoughts are, the more confident we will feel and the more competent we will be perceived to be.
But here's the rub: in order to continue to do this and fund our deficit, we have to be perceived to be on a sustainable fiscal path.
