"Well, OK, maybe one is called for: How is it that the Zone's conservatives can simultaneously declare their respect for and devotion to scientific rationality, while demonstrating a willingness to swallow without question, and passionately defend, any crazy-ass assertion Bush makes about anything at all?"

Hmm, obviously Clinton is scientifically incapable of feeling your pain.

A couple of things. Bush is a politican. The media spins stories.

Bush is a politican: We don't want a scientist instead of a politican. It is possible for a scientist to become a politican, but then they aren't being scientist, they are being a politican who can claim they were once a scientist.

The media spins stories: No one [who has a clue] claims that news stories are accurate. It is accepted by people who have vague clue, that the news spins stories. Spin is misleading people, spin is selling you something. Spin is telling you a story {story, as in: fish tale, your account of things with the idea making yourself seem believable, fantasy, lying your ass off, etc.}. Unlike, say, TV ads, reporters can't be sued because they have misrepresented their product, though they can be critized by others- assuming anyone wants to bother.
An objective test of the quality of news stories, is to read something in the news which you are fairly familar with. You will discover that it's full of inaccurate details. Or if you have a reporter who does a story on you and the reporter doesn't like you, the story about you will be twisted in a unfavorable way. If the reporter likes you, then the story will still be twisted. The news is not objective- it's not even vaguely close to being objective, the news only says that it is objective and factual, because people aren't going to waste much of their time listening to poorly written fish tales. There continously lame excuse is that their readers want to be entertained, but the truth is they own the media or are working in the media because they want to influence politics.