Emory University has done a study that shows when people are engaged in political thinking -- well, they aren't really thinking.
It's a fascinating read. Probably not something we haven't all thougth about the other side but as it turns out, maybe we need to look deep into the mirror ourselves too.
Behavioral data showed a pattern of emotionally biased reasoning: partisans denied obvious contradictions for their own candidate that they had no difficulty detecting in the opposing candidate. Importantly, in both their behavioral and neural responses, Republicans and Democrats did not differ in the way they responded to contradictions for the neutral control targets, such as Hanks, but Democrats responded to Kerry as Republicans responded to Bush.
Link on the other side..
It's not a long piece, but worth turning over in your mind:
http://www.eurekalert.org/...
I have always suspected this was the case. I wonder if I don't have some armor against it? I'm sure nobody will remember back this far, but when I was a committed Deaniac, the fact that he went back on his pledge to use public funds after he realized he was getting enough money to keep up with Kerry without it, and against a stated principle -- that peeved me. I thought, "Even Howard Dean -- man they all suck." But the number of people who could see my point at that time were few. I think the Emory study points to the reason why. Once we become "politically committed" it's hard to see the truth when it cuts against our favorites.
I think this site, maybe, has recently become innoculated to that sort of thing by virtue of being constantly disillusioned by those we thought were on our side.
What I'd like is some scientific CURE for this particular disease. It's ruining our country.