Now Poll On "Is Obama A Liar?"
Gary Langer of ABC News explains the "Obama is a Muslim"poll results, giving the same explanation as the AllahPundit. From Langer:
...People in fact may voice an attitude not as an affirmed belief ? a statement of perceived factual reality ? but rather as what my colleagues and I have taken to calling ?expressed belief? ? a statement intended to send a message, not claim a known fact.
It?s human nature. Some people who strongly oppose a person or proposition will take virtually any opportunity to express that antipathy. Offer a negative attribute, they?ll grab it ? not to express their ?belief,? in its conventional meaning, but rather to throw verbal stones at that which they so thoroughly dislike.
Or from the
AP, with more flair:
Essentially, when polling people who dislike candidate X, the specifics of the questions are almost irrelevant. As long as they?re negatively inclined ? e.g., ?Is Obama a werewolf?? ? you?ll get a certain core percentage willing to say yes. The news in this poll is that as much as 18 percent think being a Muslim is inherently negative.
To which I would say, yes, but... Saying Obama is a Muslim amounts to saying he is a liar. Hence, one might feel utterly neutral about Muslims and still use it as a club to beat Obama.
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