Incidentally, I was googling around yesterday and found a couple of very good articles that are related to this.
Diagnosing the Republican BrainThe Science of Why We Don't Believe ScienceA very nice quote from the second one:
And since Festinger's day, an array of new discoveries in psychology and neuroscience has further demonstrated how our preexisting beliefs, far more than any new facts, can skew our thoughts and even color what we consider our most dispassionate and logical conclusions. This tendency toward so-called "motivated reasoning" helps explain why we find groups so polarized over matters where the evidence is so unequivocal: climate change, vaccines, "death panels," the birthplace and religion of the president (PDF), and much else.
It would seem that expecting people to be convinced by the facts flies in the face of, you know, the facts.
ETA: Oh and this was a good one too:
Six Critical Foreign Policy Questions That Won't Be Raised in the Debates
Devious, treacherous, murderous, neanderthal, sub-human of the West.