Why People Think Barack Obama Is a Muslim

So, we are not only very fat. We are very, very stupid as well.

Almost 20 percent of Americans, according to a new Pew Research Center poll, think that the president of the United States is Muslim.

If this was still 2007, and Barack Obama was still an obscure U.S. senator, one might understand this result.

But the man has occupied the most powerful and prominent office on the planet for almost two years--and the subject of his birth and his faith have been a topic of near-constant discussion. This is not a matter of insufficient attention. This is stupidity.

[See photos of the Obamas behind the scenes.]

There are two possibilities. First off: A lot of us just don't give a damn. There are a sizable bunch of folks who don't vote, don't read, don't care. If the pollster had asked them to name the first president of the United States, they probably would have said "John Wayne" or "Moses."

These are people we used to call, in less genteel times, morons.

And then there are the willfully stupid. These are people who should know better, but have a grievance with the world, and blame their own sad and tawdry life on whatever handy scapegoat is at hand. They want to believe that Muslim conspirators forged Obama's birth certificate five decades ago, and had him raised as a secret-Muslim-agent-baby so that one day he would do terrible things, like rescue General Motors.

And there is nothing you can do to persuade them otherwise. For these folks, ignorance is truly bliss, and always will be.

Unfortunately, these people live on and on, as aged, opinionated crackpots, voting their idiotic prejudices, collecting their government checks, and living off the hard work of the rest of us.

Ah, democracy!

• Check out our editorial cartoons on the “ground zero mosque” controversy.
• Follow the money in Congress.
  
• See photos of the Obamas behind the scenes.

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