Facts vs belief. Facts vs belief. I have a whole pile of these, things that someone said, that everyone said what it meant, when you really look at it, that's not what he or she said.
And you are right, futile. What one doesn't wish to see, one cannot see.
A good example of this kind of "thinking" is the way the dems are reacting to the recent elections. The factors they are selecting to blame are utterly trivial, and the main reasons for their loss are absolutely invisible to them.