laurel wrote in comments, "it's really hard for most people (me included) to acknowledge that we've been actually fooled. I think we should all say the things we were fooled about/by, and maybe put that together as a website/ad/something. I'll go first.

"I've been duped. I believed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I also believed that there were things the Bush administration would not do for reelection."

here's mine: i've been duped. i believed there were weapons of mass destruction in iraq, because the administration seemed so sure, and i couldn't believe they'd lie about something so serious.

i've been duped. i believed in bush's "compassionate conservative" rhetoric. i believed that he really cared about education, and i believed that the "texas miracle" had some sort of basis in reality. but now i know that the houston schools falsified records in order to bear out the "miracle," and i know that texas kids don't show any improvement on any test other than the one they're taught in texas schools. i care about education because i am a student and my parents are teachers, and that makes me mad.

you?