demo woman - August 19, 2010 | 8:31 am · Link

Since the N word is no longer acceptable, they had to come up with something else.

roshan - August 19, 2010 | 8:35 am · Link

Hats off to News Corp, gotta learn from the pros. They have even made Atwater look incompetent in comparison.

a different phil - August 19, 2010 | 8:36 am · Link

All you have to do is look back in the Balloon Juice archives to here:

John: Hey, Bush is now at 37% approval. I feel much less like Kevin McCarthy screaming in traffic. But I wonder what his base is …
Tyrone: 27%.
John: ... you said that immmediately, and with some authority.
Tyrone: Obama vs. Alan Keyes. Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27% of the population of Illinois voted for him. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement. Hell, even like 5% of Democrats voted for him. That’s crazy behaviour. I think you have to assume a 27% Crazification Factor in any population.

MattF - August 19, 2010 | 8:37 am · Link

Given that you can get 20 to 30 percent to sign on to just about anything, 20 percent is actually kind of low. I’d be curious about the cross-tabs on that 20 percent, though. Elderly white southern males, plus a few insert-head-in-orifice diehards on Staten Island.

Emma - August 19, 2010 | 8:39 am · Link

Perhaps if the newspaper(s) of record didn’t spend half their time giving credibility to the discredited rabble-rousers we wouldn’t be in this pickle. But then again, it’s the 20%. It’s always the 20%.

Elia - August 19, 2010 | 8:52 am · Link

You gotta figure the cross-over of those who think he’s a mooslin and those who think he’s a Socialist is pretty high – and I’d imagine that, while lower, the crossover number of those who think he’s a muslin fascist is comparable, too – and that basically these are just people who loathe him and are ready and willing to assign to him whatever epithet they find particularly damning.

He’s on Team Edward, for example.

MAJeff - August 19, 2010 | 9:02 am · Link

@roshan:

I wouldn’t say they have made Atwater look incompetent so much as they’ve used his playbook in a media-saturated environment he didn’t have. They’ve continued his work. Roger Ailes was, after all, part of the same crew, and the OH NO THE MUSLIMS/MEXICANS/ACORN/VAN JONES/NEW BLACK PANTHER PARTY/NAACP ARE COMING TO GET YOU is nothing more than a continuation of the Southern Strategy by the same ratfuckers.

jwb - August 19, 2010 | 9:08 am · Link

@Nick: Depends on who you mean by “we.” Whatever it is “we” are doing now, clearly isn’t working worth shit. So let’s hear your ideas about how to effectively engage the media.

bob h - August 19, 2010 | 9:10 am · Link

I fully expect conservatives to call next for our remaining Muslims to wear yellow crescents on the outside of their clothing, and for Abe Foxman to be cool with that, too.

If this gets out of hand, it will probably harden the resolve of jihadists to make sure the new Trade Center is reduced to smoking, molten metal in time.

Rick Taylor - August 19, 2010 | 9:11 am · Link

I’m getting used to the idea that there is nothing so insanely idiotic you can’t get 20% of the population to believe it. But I am surprised 66% won’t acknowledge he is a Christian.

jwb - August 19, 2010 | 9:13 am · Link

@Throwin Stones: Remarkably close to the 41% from yesterday’s number. I wonder if we are zeroing in on the distractofaction: those too distracted, too overworked, too depressed to know what they think. Together with the crazifaction, that would constitute roughly two-thirds of the electorate.

El Cid - August 19, 2010 | 9:15 am · Link

Fuck—you want me to be depressed because only 1/5th of Americans polled think Obama’s a Muslin?

Shit, that’s cause to celebrate.

Couldn’t quickly google a 2010 survey, but in 2007, 48% of Americans rejected evolution, while sixty-fucking-eight percent of Republicans reject evolution.

Compared to that, this is a victory of sanity.

Omnes Omnibus - August 19, 2010 | 9:19 am · Link

@El Cid:

48% of Americans rejected evolution, while sixty-fucking-eight percent of Republicans reject evolution.

So you saying that they are making an explicit choice not to evolve? Wow.

cleek - August 19, 2010 | 9:19 am · Link

hell, apparently 60+% think religious freedom is something the majority bestows upon well-behaved minorities.

kwAwk - August 19, 2010 | 9:25 am · Link

I suppose we could look at the bright side and say that if 20% of Americans think Obama is a muslim, then those 20% of Americans at least must think that being a muslim is not a disqualifier for being President.

And if we ever do get to a point where we really do have a muslim President, then those 20% will be pretty calm about it ‘cause it wouldn’t be the first time for them.

El Cid - August 19, 2010 | 9:26 am · Link

@Omnes Omnibus:

So you saying that they are making an explicit choice not to evolve? Wow.

No, really what’s going on is that they don’t have the options, so they try to act all ‘sour grapes’ about it, so as to look better.

Chad N Freude - August 19, 2010 | 9:33 am · Link

@beltane: They see him as The Manchurian Christian.

Chad N Freude - August 19, 2010 | 9:36 am · Link

@kwAwk:

I suppose we could look at the bright side and say that if 20% of Americans think Obama is a muslim, then those 20% of Americans at least must think that being a muslim is not a disqualifier for being President.

Your logic is faulty. It’s more likely that most if not all of the 20% believe his presidency is illegitimate because of this.

homerhk - August 19, 2010 | 9:41 am · Link

As I’ve said on other threads, what is most shocking to me is the amount of people who just accept as part of the furniture that 20-25% of their countrymen/women are crazy. That’s 1 in four people, about 80million or so people if you’re talking real numbers.

How can a country survive if 25% of the people are batshit crazy? isn’t that more worrying than any other statistic out there? Whatever you think of Obama, how can even the most savvy, cunning, well meaning, heart in the right place, progressive pushing President do anything in the face of such a significant amount of crazies?

Chad N Freude - August 19, 2010 | 9:41 am · Link

@Zifnab: Control questions and correlations would never make it through the FoxFilter into the MSM, so there is no need to ask (or report) anything but the single question and the result.

WereBear - August 19, 2010 | 9:50 am · Link

@beltane: Hadn’t thought of that… something tells me “distinguish” isn’t high on their skills list.

FoxinSocks - August 19, 2010 | 9:59 am · Link

My mother believes Obama is a seekrit Muslim. And she loves him and voted for him in 2008. But she grew up in a Communist country where her phones were tapped, where men in suits would come to your door, and did come to her door, and threaten her and her family if they spoke out against the government, so she believes in all these conspiracy theories. The government is always snooping on you, the government is always lying to you, and Obama-the-Seekrit-Muslim just fits into all that. Plus, I think she likes being in on the seekrit and feeling like she knows something the rest of us don’t.

jwb - August 19, 2010 | 10:03 am · Link

@Nick: ok, I’m all for storming the media Bastille. But how do we organize ourselves an effective mob to combat the one that, as Gina points out, the media (either through design or reaction) already has in place?

scav - August 19, 2010 | 10:09 am · Link

@homerhk: Well, speaking only for myself, I usually reserve that kind of thinking for the companies that have employed me: I’m not entirely sure how some of them managed to file all their paperwork more or less on time let alone how any of them managed to make money. Granted, in companies, I found that the 28% tended to gravitate towards management and marketing while Facilities Management tended hard toward basic sanity which meant the buildings remained physically standing and the sidewalks were consistently de-iced. So, yeah, amazing at it may sound, I can easily combine entire-zoo-shit levels of craziness with baseline functionality over certain periods of time.

Nick - August 19, 2010 | 10:12 am · Link

@jwb:

But how do we organize ourselves an effective mob to combat the one that, as Gina points out, the media (either through design or reaction) already has in place?

I honestly don’t know if we can, but however we do it, it’s going to involve money, so the best thing to do is find rich people who believe in our cause.

and also voting, if we can constantly beat Republicans, even in years like this, it will deal repeat blows to the conservamedia.

Zandar - August 19, 2010 | 10:24 am · Link

We’re missing the point.

The point is not 20% of Americans think Obama is Muslim.

The point is not 43% of Americans are unsure about Obama’s religion.

The point is 63% of Americans—a solid majority—now refuse to classify Obama as a Christian.

To my knowledge I can’t begin to think of a President where a majority of Americans questioned his Christianity. Obama is the first.

He’s also a Presidential first for a much more obvious reason, but we live in a country where it’s still not quite acceptable for 63% of the country to openly dislike Obama because of that particular Presidential first.

Just sayin’.

bago - August 19, 2010 | 10:25 am · Link

@Neo: Are you accusing the president of not believing that the magical spells (prayers) implored against an invisible and unknown deity are effective? Are you accusing him of dealing with known and provable reality?

Kryptik - August 19, 2010 | 10:36 am · Link

@homerhk:

I saw you make this comment at Swampland, but didn’t have time to answer it earlier, so I’ll just say it here:

It’s accepted because experience has taught us that said 25% or so are totally impervious to any rational or logical argument. Attempts to actually educate or argue with this sector of America has resulted in their positions HARDENING and becoming MORE radical. They’re a lost cause. That’s sad reality, and yes, that means we’re fighting with the scales already heavily tilted. :/

@Neo:

My answer to this comes in the form of a question: Why should it matter?

I mean…I recognize that in our broken discourse it matters, but it shouldn’t. It really fucking shouldn’t, and if that’s the reason why Obama is doubly tarred along with Islam (oohhh, Obama’s a seekrit muslin and that means he’s a terrist Islamosympathizer!), then fuck we are so broken.

Kryptik - August 19, 2010 | 10:39 am · Link

@wilfred:

It sadly is, because the narrative has been set in stone that ‘Muslim = Terrorist sympathizer’, or at least some sort of exotic Other that just plain isn’t acceptable in the broad discourse. It’s a double smear, both on Obama and on Islam, and if Obama was really a Muslim, the sad fact of the matter is that the narrative would avalanche on him, and discredit not only him, but Democrats as a whole. Why? Because our country as a whole seems full of intolerant fucks.

Why does reality have to be so fucking horrible sometimes?

Zandar - August 19, 2010 | 10:53 am · Link

@matoko_chan:

True.

Of course, they’ll just say “Well the real problem is the economy. That doesn’t make me a racist or a bigot.”

Kryptik - August 19, 2010 | 10:57 am · Link

@matoko_chan:

My problem isn’t necessarily their electoral chances in the long run. It’s their chances in the now, and the legislative and legal legacy they’ll leave for decades to come if they get significant power back in the short-term present. Because we’re already seeing a painful social and narrative legacy they’ve wrought this past decade, and how it’s only escalated now that they’re technically out of power.

WereBear - August 19, 2010 | 11:02 am · Link

Once upon a time, The Batshit did not have their own political party to rally around. They were probably Birchers, too crazy for Goldwater, and in the time of mimeoed newsletters and high cost long distance, pretty unorganized.

But look what technology has wrought.

However, I am not taking this seriously (and I wish Howard Dean did not.) The more the Republicans stoke their base, the less appealing that Base becomes to people with a shred of sanity.

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

WereBear - August 19, 2010 | 11:12 am · Link

@Kryptik: I hear you, but I don’t have any reason to believe that is, in fact, occuring. I’m saying these folks were always with us, and always crazy. However, they used to be like pepper sprinkled on a white rug… barely noticable.

Now that they are all dumped in one place, and there’s television cameras pointed right at the spot, it looks big and distressing.

Remember: they never had their own television channel before. They do now.

Kryptik - August 19, 2010 | 11:21 am · Link

@WereBear:

I wish I could be assured of that as you, but the whole ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ seems to prove that lie and fearmonger enough, and you can get everyone to go fucking insane enough to tar a whole religion out of whole cloth. I mean…christ, even the majority of Dems seem to have taken away the impression that the thing is going to be a literal Megamosque on the ashes of Ground Zero with a minaret shaped like Bin Laden teabagging the Statue of Liberty.

Christ. I’m not even 30, and yet I feel like George Carlin did in his later years, where everything sucks and the only way to keep going is to mock everyone brutally and openly, fuck manners. I can only imagine what he’s screaming at us from the grave.

matoko_chan - August 19, 2010 | 11:30 am · Link

@WereBear: yes, they are very loud….but they are not very numerous.
tea party activists are 2% of the electorate, and 98% of the screaming.
:)

WereBear - August 19, 2010 | 11:38 am · Link

Call me Pollyanna… it won’t be the first time :)

However, most people are really not paying attention. Really. They’re not thinking about politics. Really. They won’t start paying attention until mid October.

Alwhite - August 19, 2010 | 11:57 am · Link

With apologies to Richard Pryor:

Gabby Johnson, “The President is a NIG” BONG
Howard Jonson. “What did he say?”
Able Johnson, “He said the President is near!”
Gabby Johnson, “No, dangnabit – I said the President is a NIG” BONG!

Muslin is close enough for the crackpot 20%

Alwhite - August 19, 2010 | 12:01 pm · Link

@Kryptik:

What happens when the net effect is less sane people? What happens when the fear mongering turns the sane insane?

see: Germany 1932 – 1939

gex - August 19, 2010 | 12:08 pm · Link

@jwb: Now you see why Net Neutrality is the new battleground. The young people don’t watch the teevee and are therefore more immune to drinking the kool-aid. Absent some crackdown on Internet communications (such as British libel laws or Comcast getting to decide which data you are allowed to see) the strangle hold of one-way, let us tell you what to think media (TV, radio) will lessen.

Sure, people can put themselves in a bubble on line. But ultimately, they can choose to pop that bubble and check out other sources on the Net. We have only had one generation that has grown up with their own ability to broadcast their voice, we surely need to acclimate to this new social reality, but at least everyone can say what they want and read what they want with less control by the big 6 media corporations.

Brachiator - August 19, 2010 | 12:13 pm · Link

@Alwhite:

With apologies to Richard Pryor:

Actually, it would be Mel Brooks and Cleavon Little.
@gex:

The young people don’t watch the teevee and are therefore more immune to drinking the kool-aid.

Have these polls been broken down by age? Where I work, many of the younger people don’t read any news at all from anywhere unless it is entertainment news. And while most of them tend to skew liberal, there are alarming pockets of wingnuttia.

John D. - August 19, 2010 | 12:26 pm · Link

@Alwhite:

With apologies to Richard Pryor:

You misspelled “Mel Brooks”.

WereBear - August 19, 2010 | 1:17 pm · Link

@gex: Yes, that’s true, and it’s because of Fox News stocking such concerns… but what age are these people?

I think we have a generation who grew up believing everything they saw on the teevee because Uncle Walter said so. The younger people are far more cynical… they got the toy and it didn’ t fly like it did on the commercial.

Not that they can’t cause damage. But it’s time limited… and their time is running out.

TuiMel - August 19, 2010 | 1:40 pm · Link

I think I heard Andy Kohut on NPR this morning opining that the reason for the increase in the number of people professing the erroneous perception that Obama is a Muslim is something along the lines of “religion does not play a prominent role in Obama’s life.” What a crock. Obama’s decided lack of whiteness, his funny name, and the constant pimping of memes about his non-white bread up-bringing and vacation choices (he is going to Hawaii not Myrtle Beach) are responsible for the dumbing down of people who yearn to be dumbed down. Sheesh.

Kevin - August 19, 2010 | 2:01 pm · Link

“Muslim” has become that word only because the N-word isn’t allowed on the Teveee these days.

rickstersherpa - August 19, 2010 | 2:14 pm · Link

I have linked to the following to show the stories these people tell themselves and the folks that read their blogs.

http://neoneocon.com/2010/08/1.....et-muslim/

Obama has written two books about himself, including “Dreams of My Father,” published in 1995 when the prospect that he would run and win the Presidency is 2008 would have struck him as a joke, and he explains how he became a Christian in the African Methodist Church. As for attending church, that has been a logistical nightmare for sitting presidents since Truman and most have not attended public Sunday services as a result.

But when even mainstream members of the media like Kohut airbrush out huge facts about Obama that don’t fit the Village meme of the day, we are in the world of make believe and madness.

Especially on economic policy, I would say that Obama has been a continuation of the last two years of the Bush administration, so he has left me disappointed. But reaction to him, by the right, is so out of touch to reality it can only be called “mad.” And they may soon have the power of the Government again. And “whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.” (Euripides, Medea)

Brachiator - August 19, 2010 | 3:10 pm · Link

@rickstersherpa:

Especially on economic policy, I would say that Obama has been a continuation of the last two years of the Bush administration, so he has left me disappointed.

How is that, exactly? What is it that Obama should have done, which would be a different economic policy? And are you separating tax policy from economic policy? Because on taxes there is stuff that Obama has done that Dubya would never have considered.

Brachiator - August 19, 2010 | 5:40 pm · Link

@dude:
Clearly it’s not a scientific poll, but this morning a Southern California radio talk show host set up a poll to ask the following question.

Since Bill is in favor of allowing the mosque at Ground Zero to be built, is he, therefore secretly a Muslim?

So far, 39.91% have said “Yes, Bill is secretly a Muslim” even though the host is Jewish.

Mayur - August 19, 2010 | 7:53 pm · Link

@Brachiator: Yeah, this needs to stop. I personally think that Obama didn’t do enough soon enough (aaaand along will come Stuck to call me a “firebagger”), but I have no doubts that on tax policy and on the specific nature of stimulus spending, Obama is on a much more reasonable point on the spectrum than Bush (and, BTW, I think Bush would have approved a stimulus and just pitched it differently; I think opposition to the stimulus is based purely on tribalism, as with pretty much all economic policy when it comes to low-info voters).