For many in the social sciences, the 2004 U.S. presidential and congressional elections have become oft-cited examples of the limits of procedural democracy. Pulling on public opinion from before the election as well as other data, political scientists, sociologists, social psychologists, and specialists in communication have sought to explain the results of these elections (which guaranteed a continuation of the Iraq War) in terms of elites framing the political discourse; emotional, media, and rhetorical manipulation; appeal to ideology; dissemination of bad or inaccu rate information; and existential triggers. That each of these causal factors in the election bypasses rational and public deliberation, that none results from inquiry into the truthfulness of the political opinions regarding the war and its justifica tions, and the subsequent public opinion data showing that the public has changed its opinion on the prosecution of the war and on the legitimacy of its rationale, may signal that there are fatal problems with American democracy.1 If anything, the aftermath of the 2006 congressional elections when Democratic and antiwar majorities were elected to both houses and Iraq policy failed to change may be seen as confirmation of this judgment that democracy conceived and practiced as the aggregation of preferences for representative candidates is deeply flawed. While the social scientists mentioned above do not usually go so far in their analysis, since the 1980s political philosophers have been arguing that it is precisely these types of deficiencies that can be remedied by the adoption of deliberative democratic norms and procedures. Being in agreement with the major ity of deliberative democratic theorists who argue that the adoption of deliberative norms for political decision making will make for more democratic outcomes, this article will examine the practical obstacles that deliberative democracy may not be able to overcome. Though it does not argue that deliberative democracy is, because of these obstacles, untenable, impracticable, or unworthy of pursuit, this essay does claim that one of the factors identified by social scientists and philosophers as compromising the legitimacy and practical value of political judgment is ineliminable. Perhaps surprisingly, the conclusion is not drawn from this observation that deliberative democracy is a practical impossibility. Instead, it is argued that one of these factors, ideology, is a hindrance to deliberative