Adding in the reaction to Columbia's invitation to Ahmadinejad, there is a discernible pattern consistent with the strong streak of authoritarianism in the Conservative mind.

Words published in a book gain authority simply for being in a book. Ditto newspapers and magazines. Conservatives perceive an implied endorsement by the book's publisher, so that the words, in effect, borrow the authority of the publisher.

Ahmadinejad was perceived by the Right as having gained authority from Columbia's invitation; his words would be taken more seriously, they feared, because he was borrowing Columbia's authority.

It's about a clash of authority. This is not a trivial concern to people who tend to follow authority, because they're vulnerable to switching allegiances not as the result of rational consideration, but because they've been "entranced" by an authority more charismatic than the previous authority.

File in "Methinks the Rightist doth protest too much": The feverish obsession with consistency and dependability, often in the face of contradictory evidence. Conservatives are steeling themselves to resist the threat of being persuaded of a different viewpoint and commiting the ultimate betrayal, abandonment of authority. "Contempt prior to investigation" is anticipatory resistance to a perceived attack on one's own authority figures. It's an expression of loyalty and constancy.

Notice how consistency ("stay the course", don't "flip-flop") is portrayed by Conservatives as a distinctly moral issue. A "good" person adopts a position and sticks with it, despite any and all evidence to the contrary. A "bad" person is somebody who's willing to change his/her mind based on new information, and is thus "slippery" and "untrustworthy" and "inconstant" and "unreliable".

It's only partly correct to say that Conservatives are afraid of being wrong. What's vitally important at the gut level is that authority never be wrong. It's all the more devastating for an authoritarian when the Glorious Leader is shown to be wrong, because it shows that the choice to follow the leader was wrong, and because the failure of an authority leaves a vacuum in the authoritarian mind. Conservatives are left adrift when their leadership fails, without anchor and referents to tell them the proper course of action.

It must be hell to be a Winger.