10% of Americans Still Say Obama Is Muslim

Posted by Buck , Pensito Review at 5:44 AM on April 3, 2008.

There was a movie that came out a couple years ago called “Idiocracy.” The premise was that because stoopid people procreate at an alarmingly faster rate than the smart people, the United States was turned into a nation of drooling idiots over several generations. The movie was a comedy, but sometimes I think it’s already really happened, which ain’t so funny.

According to a Pew Center poll released today, one in 10 Americans still persists in thinking that presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama is a Muslim. This, despite his frequent references to his Christian beliefs and the recent highly publicized flap over perceived anti-American comments made by the pastor of his CHRISTIAN church.

While a majority -- 53 percent -- identify Obama as a Christian, 16 percent of conservative Republicans, 16 percent of white evangelical Protestants and 19 percent of rural Americans believe the Illinois senator is Muslim.

About a third of Americans said they don’t know what Obama’s religious beliefs are, and 9 percent of that group said it’s because they’ve heard different information about his faith.

Perhaps it’s due to a kind of stunned disbelief on the part of the less progressive among us that we’ve actually reached a point where there’s a real possibility that a black man or a white woman could become the next president of the United States.

For many in this country, the cognitive dissonance caused by housing that thought inside their cranium makes it possible to believe that we’re also choosing between a Methodist and a Muslim for president. I mean, if the first “absurd” alternative is possible, then the second must be reasonable, too. Right?

Buck is a blogger for the Pensito Review