rationalizing

You can but usually modest in that's what I referred to as the rationalizing horsepower of customers.

SeekingAlpha.com: Home Page 2008

You can but usually modest in that's what I referred to as the rationalizing horsepower of customers.

SeekingAlpha.com: Home Page 2008

I love your thinking in rationalizing eating this yummy squash dish!!

Tex-Mex squash casserole | Homesick Texan Homesick Texan 2009

But Mike had other help in rationalizing what he was doing.

VDARE.com: Blog Articles » Print » Reality Checks? We Don’t Need No Steenking Reality Checks! 2008

But Mike had other help in rationalizing what he was doing.

Reality Checks? We Don’t Need No Steenking Reality Checks! 2008

It occurred to me while reading your defenses of your equally misspent lives that none of you had anything more to say in rationalizing your sorry existence on this insignificant planet than that you were there and, truth be told, you had nothing more to do with that than having been the product of an injection of warm sperm from a soon to be diseased prostate.

Whate towns or cities have the best climate? 2005

Perhaps now that the federal government is of the same political persuasion as the majority of its provincial counterparts, it might be timely to begin rationalizing some of the conflicting demands made upon industry.

A Prescription for Business/Government Relations 1979

I guess this kind of moral rationalizing is made much easier when you don’t have pesky principles in the way — stuff like a silly “commitment to the meaning of language” and “adherence to observable reality” can really throw a monkey wrench into fantasy worlds, I imagine.

Think Progress » Bennett: Racial Epithet Yelled At Rep. John Lewis Is Proof That ‘Racism In America Is Dead’ 2010

This spontaneous and loyal support of our preconceptions -- this process of finding "good" reasons to justify our routine beliefs -- is known to modern psychologists as "rationalizing" -- clearly only a new name for a very ancient thing.

The Mind in the Making The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform James Harvey Robinson 1899

NYPD officials insist the pressure has never been an excuse to fudge the numbers and department spokesman Paul Browne rejected Arniotes '"rationalizing" saying: "Hundreds of captains do their job honestly, without resorting to dishonesty of any kind."

NYPD Cops Fudged Crime Stats in Compstat Model Program Now Used in 100s of US Cities 2010