GOP knows Obama's not a Muslim, but what's a little misunderstanding?

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion," the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said, "but not their own facts." But the rise of partisan media means that Americans are self-segregating themselves into separate political realities where we can't even agree on basic facts like the president's religion and birthplace.

While no responsible Republican would ever explicitly encourage these beliefs, there are plenty who delight in these poll findings because it presumably points to partisan gain. Truth is not as important as the pursuit of power in professional partisans' eyes, and dividing to conquer is a time-honored trick.

Each president since at least Nixon has faced a concerted effort to de-legitimize the duly elected president of the opposing party from day one. But with Barack Obama, the fact that he is the first African-American president with a middle name Hussein has led to a new level of ugliness and suspicion. Attacks that demonize the president are poisoning the civic well from which we all drink.

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The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.

- Jim Bishop -

Look if you like, but you will have to leap.

- Unknown -

Obama’s ‘Otherness’

Political Times - G.O.P. Is Using Obama’s ‘Otherness’ as Campaign Tactic - NYTimes.com: "If Ronald Reagan was the party’s Great Communicator, then Republicans seem to be hoping that Mr. Obama is its Great Galvanizer. The assault on Mr. Obama’s cultural affinity, the clear implication that he is neither suitably Christian nor American in his values, adds a sinister subtext to the argument against his economic agenda. It suggests that Mr. Obama is oddly indifferent to the effects of his policies on ordinary Americans because, at the end of the day, he doesn’t share their experience."

Mr. Obama’s alleged sympathy for so-called Muslim extremists who would desecrate the World Trade Center site, his socialist African ancestry and his early years in Indonesia — all of this creates a shadowy archetype that every conservative enclave, fiscal, foreign policy and religious, can find a reason to fear.