I would say stubbornness accounts for at least 20% of bush's support.

If not even more of that. I don't honestly believe that most of these people believe this spin as much as they just cannot bring themselves to get past their stubbornness and admit that they were wrong and backed an incompetent loser, let alone that the dreaded liberals were right on almost every single count.

Even people who are turning on Bush (like Andrew Sullivan) who can at least bring themselves to admit that Bush has bungled and done horribly, STILL feel compelled to spin it in a "Well who knew it would be this bad" way that just reeks of dishonesty. I've yet to see even the most intellectually honest of conservatives (what few there are) admit "Holy shit...what were we thinking elevating this guy to this level" let alone "O.K., pretty much everything the anti-war left said would happen has, and every concern even the most moderate of dems had has become reality."

I mean we're not talking a lot of grey area here. We are talking everything any of us said that Bush would do, both after the 2000 election, before 9/11, after 9/11, before the Iraq war, after the Iraq war, has happened. Not just some of it. Every single goddamned thing form the right wing judges, to the tearing up of international treaties, to the pissing on the environment, to using 9/11 as an excuse to move the country further right, to the fundamentalism, to the lies about WMD's, to the poor war planning, to all of it. On every single count they have been wrong and we have been right.

Yet because people are so goddamned stubborn we find ourselves in this sutation we are in today. Think about it. All it would take is 5% of the people who still cling desparately to their Bush support to admit this and it would be all over.

Not going to happen, but still.

There's a river of it.

would be stupidity?

The ignorant are easily scared by Bush and his lackeys on talk radio. If a person is really scared by all that crap the GOP pushes about terrorists, then no amount of reason will sway them.

She ACTUALLY agrees with most of what I have to say, but being passive agressive, I think she just might vote for Bush just to "show me" she has her own views. She did this 4 years ago and only told me this last week!!!! So I said, Ooookay, vote how you want, but vote. Maybe she'll get pissed off and vote for Kerry just to "show me"!

They'll vote for Bush because of the damage he's doing to the country--not in spite of it.

They know Bush's policies will hurt them. Their motive is to make others miserable because they are. In short, they cut off their noses to spite their faces.