In "The matter's closed for many voters" (Point of View, July 11), William Boettcher and Michael Cobb wrote that core opinions "regarding the decision to go to war" in Iraq remain negative despite reports that the war is going better lately. Their explanation for the supposed "mismatch" between the reports and the public's views is insulting to the reader's intelligence and/or irrational.

They wrote that opinions should change in a favorable direction based on "a preponderance of evidence that the war is not lost." They say opinions remain negative, however, because of "psychological biases that prevent rational updating of attitudes."

Perhaps it has not occurred to them that the public's negative opinion "about the decision to go to war" is more negative now precisely because of the "rational updating of attitudes." The public has gotten the "news" that U.S. citizens were tricked into supporting the illegal invasion of a sovereign nation that posed no threat to us.

All the death, sorrow, agony and destruction that have been suffered on all sides need never to have been suffered. Whether we believe the war can be won is not relevant to a rational person when deciding whether we should have attacked Iraq in the first place.

Ellen Whitaker, Durham