Evan Lehmann's (Lowell Sun article, no longer available) "Rewriting history under the dome" reported on congressional staffers in the House of Representatives rewriting Wikipedia articles on their bosses. However, it wasn't limited to them, it seems. Yuki Noguchi ("Wikipedia's Help From the Hill," Washington Post) reports on Senate staffers engaged in the same sort of unethical behavior. What's fascinating is the spin given to it by one staffer:

"I don't know why this is a story," said James Pendleton, a spokesman for Burns. "There is no sanctity in Wikipedia. Somebody will always come and change it."

Such a response fits in well with the study showing that staunch Democrats and Republicans don't let facts faze their beliefs but they rationalize them away.

Actually, I'm not sure that one needs to be "staunch" but perhaps just have a natural resistance to that which contradicts one's position. Perhaps what would be helpful in composition courses, and other educational endeavors, would be tasks that lead to flexibility in entertaining new ideas, tasks that move students to explore without being penalized for wrong answers. This approach will bump up against institutional requirements for grades and testing. Is it possible to separate student performance, at least in the eyes of the studentl, from student identity?