Aren't all politicians viewed this way already?

14 percent of Americans say President Barack Obama may be the Antichrist. When split by political party, 24 percent of Republicans and 6 percent of Democrats viewed the nation's leader in this way.

[snip]

Here's the percentage breakdown of respondents' views of President Obama:

38 percent say he wants to take away Americans' right to own guns.

32 percent say he is a Muslim.

29 percent think he wants to turn over the sovereignty of the United States to a one world government.

29 percent think he has done many things that are unconstitutional.

27 percent say he resents America's heritage.

27 percent say he does what Wall Street and the bankers tell him to do.

25 percent say he was not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president.

25 percent say he is a domestic enemy that the U.S. Constitutions speaks of.

23 percent say he is a racist.

23 percent say he is anti-American.

23 percent say he wants to use an economic collapse or terrorist attack as an excuse to take dictatorial powers.

20 percent say he is doing many of the things that Hitler did.

When broken out by political party, results showed some stark differences. For instance, the majority of Republicans believed the president is a Muslim and a socialist, while around 40 percent believe he is a racist, someone who resents American heritage and "wants terrorists to win."

Forty percent of Republicans, compared with just 15 percent of Democrats, think Wall Street pulls his strings.

When Harris' Taylor saw the results he told LiveScience he was "flabbergasted. I would've guessed the numbers would've been a lot smaller than that."

He added, "It means that very large numbers of people are misninformed not only about President Obama but many things in modern life."

The findings lend support to, and in fact were done to verify, themes in John Avlon's new book "Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America" (Beast Books, 2010).

Blog sprinkles

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”

Phila of Bouphonia's Friday Hope blog... never late.

The Republican party no longer is mainstream.

First rule of infidelity: Don't piss off the wife by asking permission to visit the soul mate mistress.

Buy Chinese products!



Contemplating the choices if we get another Republican governor of California....

Politicians appeal to the teenager mind?

The importance of growing and eating local crops.

JJ of Unrepentant Old Hippie found this Chris Matthews video interview between a rabid anti-gays in military and a gay ex-soldier:



So you know just who is preventing the government from functioning... and thinking it's great fun:

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has put an extraordinary "blanket hold" on at least 70 nominations President Obama has sent to the Senate, CongressDaily (sub. req.) reports. The hold means no nominations can move forward unless Senate Democrats can secure a 60-member cloture vote to break it, or until Shelby lifts the hold.

"While holds are frequent," CongressDaily reports, "Senate aides said a blanket hold represents a far more aggressive use of the power than is normal."

The party of 'Country First' my ass.

Unleashing the hounds

Gandhisxmas of Pygalgia has a frightening quote from Noam Chompsky: (my bold)

McCain is supposed to be a specialist on national security issues. Why? Suppose that some Russian pilot was shot down bombing heavily populated areas in Kabul and tortured by Reagan's freedom fighters in the l980's. Well, we might feel sorry for him, but does that make him an expert on National Security? But McCain is an expert on national security because he was shot down bombing heavily populated urban areas in Hanoi and he was tortured by the Vietnamese. Well, we feel sorry for him, but he is no expert on National Security. But you can't say that. These elections are run by the public relations industry. The intellectual community goes along. Issues are marginalized. The focus is on personalities, on Jeremiah Wright's sermons, Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter, or whatever it may be. In that terrain, the Republicans have a big advantage. They also have a formidable slander and vilification machine which has yet to go into full operation.

And here it comes, via Morse at Media Needle, Greg Sargent of TPM, and especially Dana Milbank of the Washington Post:

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a McCain confidant, told The Post's David Broder that the campaign would "go down in history as stupid if they don't unleash" Palin. Well, the self-identified pit bull has been unleashed -- if not unhinged.

Barack Obama, she told 8,000 fans at a rally here Monday afternoon, "launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist!" This followed her earlier accusation that the Democrat pals around with terrorists. "This is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America," she told the Clearwater crowd. "I'm afraid this is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country." The crowd replied with boos.

McCain had said that racially explosive attacks related to Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are off limits. But Palin told New York Times columnist Bill Kristol in an interview published Monday: "I don't know why that association isn't discussed more."

Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

(pic via JJ of Unrepentant Old Hippie copying Victor Juhasz's illustration in Rolling Stone)

crossposted at SteveAudio