If you need further proof of the toxicity of ideology and partisanship, the power of professional talksters to instill a mindset, and the down side of Internet media which allows falsehoods to be passed off as fact and turned into political mantras, you need look no further than this poll:
A majority of Republican voters, 54 percent, think that President Obama is a Muslim, according to a new survey from the left-leaning Public Policy Polling (PPP).
Asked whether they thought Obama is a Christian or Muslim or if they were unsure, 32 percent said they were unsure. Fourteen percent said he was a Christian
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That’s right: despite zero evidence that he is a Muslim, only 13 percent of the GOPers polled thought said he was a Christian. (So I suspect that given the fact I’ve been highly and disdainfully critical of the idea of building a border wall with Mexico, they’d insist that “Gandelman” is a Hispanic name).
And then, of course, there is that teeny weenie question: so what’s so bad about being Muslim? (OOPS! That must mean that despite the name “Gandelman,” I’m a Muslim.).
Many right-leaning voters have been deeply skeptical about Obama’s faith since before he became president.
The topic arose again prominently in 2012, when Obama faced former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a devout Mormon, in the general election.
Obama rarely invokes his own faith in speeches and public appearances, though has remarked about his Christian faith during comments for holidays such as Easter.
Facts, schmacks. To many, that doesn’t matter any more. It’s the political mantra — pick something you think is negative about someone, and say it over and over as a political bludgeon and maybe it’ll work.
P.S. Among a chunk of Republicans, it has.
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Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.