There's no deception like self-deception Don't be troubled by Andrew Young's curious op-ed in the Washington Post this morning, for the reasons nicely summarized in Steve Clemons's Washington Note

Read down in the Young piece to the reason why celebrity wrong-doers hire celebrity spokesmen, and reflect on its applicability in The Current Situation.

But the really interesting article in the Post today was on page A3 by Shankar Vedantam "when seeing is disbelieving", a thoughtful and evidence-based piece on self-deception

"Self-deception evolves in the service of deceit for two reasons," "It improves your ability to fool others and, second, it reduces the cognitive costs of deception....If you can make yourself believe the untruth, for example, by marshaling evidence that supports your view and ignoring evidence that contradicts your position, it becomes that much easier to persuade others."

The Current Situation is replete with masters of the art of self-deception: Paul Wolfowitz, of course, and not about his old job. His claims about the ethics committee having signed off on this twice don't become true just because he keeps mouthing them, through his spokesman, Bob Bennett. Mr. Bennett seems pretty versed in self-deception, as he fulminates on how deplorably his client is being treated. At least he's not been fired. Yet. And the more they blow, the fewer people are persuaded, unless we're talking of the smell of a deal in the air.

And self-deception goes farther, even this morning, with a "That's one heckuva job, Wolfie" vote of confidence from the man who put him there. The Secretary of the Treasury must be appalled.

Deep Insider ~ April 30, 2007

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