It's one thing for us to attempt to analyze neo-cons who clearly know what they're doing. That is, they have planned and plotted each and every move which have led us to this point in the Bush presidency.
True, we suffer the consequences of all that they did and did not anticipate. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to so easily recognize the obvious mess-o-potamia we find ourselves in, because neo-cons are quite capable of covering their tracks. But by and large, things in this country are going according to well-laid plans.
It's another matter to try to get into the heads of those otherwise intelligent foot soldiers who follow neo-con principles and policy like zombies in the
Dawn of the Dead. I include in this group the SCLM, those most culpable for selling the war and the overreaching policies of BushCo (namely tax policy, environmental regression, and dismantling of the safety net) to the American people. For the life of me, it is difficult even naming a journalist or columnist whom I deem to have achieved a measurable degree of "objectivity."
And, it is entirely another proposition to attempt to understand the ignorant minions blinded by so-called faith, if you will. Here, I refer to those who follow in lock-step with this administration, no matter how far it falls, how much it lies, or how hypocritical it becomes.
When I was young, of course I assumed everyone knew how to distinguish between right and wrong, that is, as I knew right and wrong to be in MY understanding of morality. Isn't that's why it's always so easy to judge other people? If I'm on the "right" side of the issue, everyone else's side has to be wrong. "Right and wrong" were unmoving, stagnant realities, and any shift brought certain finger-pointing, if not out-and-out retribution.
After many years and lots of therapy, I was well into my adult life before realizing, contrary to what I was taught, what I learned, and what I came to believe based on my world view, that most of the world was not, in fact, just black and white, but painted in a full array of greys.
As a recovering Catholic, I now know the difference between "blind faith" and downright stubbornness that doesn't allow me to admit when I've made a mistake.
These are the followers of George W. Bush. They do not presume they are right -- they KNOW it to be so, and therefore, everyone else is just plain wrong. They are certain that theirs is a superior morality -- for it is, in fact, the ONLY morality to them. They are not driven by logic, but by instinct and their presumption that a righteous God is exclusively on their side.
This is part of the reason why the facts don't matter. They never have and they never will.