A recent study suggests that people who are deeply committed to a political party philosophy have no difficulty ignoring facts and substituting pure emotion for reasoning in defense of their views.
People who are deeply committed to a political party philosophy are generally the ones who rise to political party leadership and become elected officials, one would naturally conclude.
So, as function of probability, a generous number of our elected officials have no difficulty ignoring facts and substituting pure emotion for reasoning in defense of their views.
(Repeat this post’s headline here for emphasis.)
Blog In My Own Eye 
Something is very wrong–and scary!
When I first starting reading your post I thought you were going to be tllking about “church” members instead of politicians. I thought of those who defend their views without really reading and searching. Hmmmm, interesting!
Peg, the truth is that I was writing in anticipation of the antics that surround the “State of the Union” address by the President.But you bring up a parallel that is all too real to ignore.I’m going to look around a bit and see if anyone has studied how religious bias affects reasoning ability ….