That is the point; I think both posts make; people really believe what they want to believe. Then they manufacture a whole schema to back it up. If you disagree they take it personally.
Hillary asks Rumsfeld; "You have been wrong so many times so far in this war why should we believe anything you say now?"
"Gosh; I don't think I ever painted a rosy picture of the outcome of this conflict."
Old Donny is like the husband caught in the bed with the babysitter. "I don't care what you saw; I didn't do it." They cal it" Cognitive Dissonance", when something is obvious and evident and right in front of you and you still deny it is there.