Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Less than half of Americans are sure our President was born in the US, according to a new CNN poll.  Less.  Than.  Half.

It's surely not what the leader of the free world wants for his birthday. But, for a stubborn group of Americans, conspiracy theories about President Obama's birthplace are the gifts that keep on giving.

The president celebrates his 49th birthday Wednesday. On the same day, a new national poll indicates some Americans continue to doubt the president was born in the United States. According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey, more than a quarter of the public have doubts about Obama's citizenship, with 11 percent saying Obama was definitely not born in the United States and another 16 percent saying the president was probably not born in the country.

Forty-two percent of those questioned say they have absolutely no doubts that the president was born in the U.S., while 29-percent say he "probably" was.


"Not surprisingly, there are big partisan differences, although a majority of Republicans thinks Obama was definitely or probably born here," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Eighty-five percent of Democrats say that Obama was definitely or probably born in the U.S., compared to 68 percent of independents and 57 percent of Republicans. Twenty-seven percent of Republicans say he was probably not born here, and another 14 percent of Republicans say he was definitely not born in the U.S."

Given that partisan bend, I'm betting less than a quarter of Republicans "absolutely" believe the President was born in Hawaii.  Why should they care about pesky facts?  18 months later the number of Americans who believe our President was born here has gone down.  Greg Sargent sums it up very well:

People don't believe things unless they want to believe them, or unless the alternative is just too painful to contemplate. Those willing to say Obama just may have been born in another country find this notion easier to accept than the idea that an African American with a Muslim-sounding name was legitimately chosen by the American people to be the leader of the free world. What's startling is the amount of people who find this scenario so difficult to swallow -- so much so that they cling to birtherism like someone who's afraid of drowning clings to driftwood.

America still isn't ready for an African-American president, nearly two years after electing one.

[UPDATE] As Adam Serwer points out, you can bet the crazy will be heaped on the Democrat elected in yesterday's Michigan primary to replace Rep. Carolyn Sheets Kilpatrick:  Hansen Clarke.

Hansen had a Muslim father from Bangladesh and a mother who grew up in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Detroit. Hansen was raised Muslim, then converted to Roman Catholicism.

His wife, Choi Palmer-Cohen, was born in South Korea and was adopted by a Catholic mother and a Jewish father. What is she today? By day, a staffer at the Center for Continuing Legal Education in Ann Arbor.

Who indeed will ask for Clarke to prove he's not a terrorist infiltrator first?