Who Cares if The President is a Muslim?

Media-Crafted Controversy

This is traditionally a bad season for our sensationalistic, controversy driven 24/7 noise machine known as the "news" media. It's mid-August, and Americans are trying to enjoy what's left of summer.

We've unplugged for the summer, so media profits are sagging.  They respond by inventing stuff to get us back and basking in the glow of their corporate-sponsored cliffhangers.

So PEW conducts a poll and a news-hungry media is all over it like a pack of rabid jihadis on a cartoonist.

18% of Americans believe President Obama is a Muslim!

So what???

• The Same poll reports that only 46% of Democrats believe Obama is a Christian!  By their own standards, half of all Democrats are kooks. 
• 20% of adults believe space aliens live among us in disguise
• 33% believe 911 was an inside job

"If Bush ran the car in the ditch, Obama and the Democrats went on a drunken joy ride and drove it the wrong way down I-70, caused a two-thousand car pileup."

Besides drumming up business for "news" organizations, this poll also provides a convenient distraction from the ongoing economic catastrophe that has been made worse by Obama and the Pelosicrats.

It also ties in nicely with the Ground Zero Mosque Controversy

Random Question:  How would Michael Bloomberg and our lefty friends feel if the people building this mosque were rabid, unabashed America-haters who openly bragged about receiving Iranian money to build this victory monument?  What if they hated homosexuality and spoke in favor of wife-beating and honor killings?  Would it still be OK for them to build the mosque?  (The answer is yes, the First Amendment doesn't just protect noncontroversial happy talk.)

68% of Americans are opposed to the Ground Zero Mosque

So are 2/3 of us bigots?  Not according to freedom-for-all libertarian David Harsanyi:

There are those who continue to make the facile claim that any protest over Park51 is a display in un-American intolerance and contempt for the Constitution. This position treats criticism of faith—religious institutions and symbols included—as tantamount to "bigotry."

Even a newfound reverence for religious liberty on the left does not negate our right to protest and criticize the philosophical disposition of others. And applying public pressure in an effort to shut down a project is as American as protesting the arrival of a new Wal-Mart. Religious institutions, as far as I can tell, are not exempted from these disputes.

In 2008, thousands of gay-rights activists protested the Mormon temple in Westwood, Calif., for its role in passing Proposition 8—the ban on same-sex marriage. This grew into a national protest to undermine the influence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—even though not every Mormon was involved.

I don't recall anti-Mormon protesters being referred to as bigots for targeting religion; it appeared to be just the opposite, in fact.

The left rediscovers religious liberty

So welcome!  Welcome, my lefty friends to the cause of religious freedom!  I assume you will now be crossing the battle lines and locking arms with beleaguered Mormons who have been targeted by leftwing bigots.