Laptopgate (and WMDgate, and Russiagate) and Belief Over-Persistence

Leon Panetta and many others on the left continue to insist, suggest, believe, etc. that Hunter's laptop was Russian "disinformation." Even despite--as Turley notes--the fact that Hunter has admitted that the laptop was his. This sort of thing happens a lot in politics, as people are loath to admit error. It's possible to just insist that you've been right all along, even when the evidence shows clearly that you weren't. Admitting such a bone-headed and consequential error comes at a psychological cost. Admitting that it was all a lie--or semi-lie--would be even more costly. The strategy here seems to be: keep lying for awhile. Eventually the thing will start to fade away. Then you can just not mention it. Even if you're forced to admit error somewhere down the line, doing so after no one cares (or perhaps even remembers) anymore will be less costly.

   But at any rate, one is reminded of the Iraq WMD debacle, in which the neo-cons, GOP, and other invasion cheerleaders simply refused to acknowledge that they were wrong. We looked high and low, and couldn't find any evidence of significant sores of "WMDs." (Note: 'WMD' was apparently a made-up term used to blur the distinction between nukes and bio-weapons on the one hand, and chemical weapons on the other.) It got so bad that we'd get breathless reports that some UXO unit somewhere had found a chemical artillery round embedded in the dirt somewhere, left over from the Iran war. We were right all along!!! Madness. Similarly with Russiagate. Progressives and liberals all over the internet insist that Trump was colluding, no matter what Mueller reported. He wasn't exonerated! They shared polling data!!! INTERNAL polling data! The Senate report! The Senate Report!!! In short: no evidence will ever be enough for them, because they don't want the theory to be false. They are so emotionally and ideologically committed to the Russian collusion conspiracy theory that they will never, ever let it go... (See also: Amanda Marcotte and the Duke lacrosse false allegations of rape). 

   Anyway, for the record: the laptop is Hunters. We basically knew it was Hunter's at the time. There was no appreciable evidence that it was Russian disinformation. And, as is only slightly less clear: the 51 formerly intelligent officials signed the letter for political reasons, to lower the odds of a Trump win and boost the odds of a Biden win.

   So, yeah, we have a massive conspiracy to subvert democracy across all our institutions, and involving the vast majority of our so-called elites...

   But no mean tweets!