Junk News Junkie

I find it completely shocking that nearly 20% of Americans believe that President Obama is Muslim. Where are 60 million people getting this crazy idea?

A national survey by the Pew Research Center found that nearly one-in-five Americans (18%) say Obama is a Muslim. Only 34 percent of those polled correctly identified the president as a Christian, half down from when he took office.

There's a note in the results of the survey saying that the interviews for the poll were conducted before Obama's comments about the proposed ground zero mosque. Just imagine what the polls will show after Americans watch his semi-defense of the mosque!

So what's fueling the constant drumbeat of Muslim rumours?

See, I think it's because people can't seem to move past his Muslim middle name. I mean, seriously, so what. it's not like he had a say in choosing his name, right?

See, his daddy Barack Hussein Obama Sr. was brought up a Muslim in Kenya, even though Obama's momma (sorry, I couldn't help myself), Stanley Ann Dunham, was raised as a Christian in the United States. The couple met as students at university and apparently neither were very religious at the time of their son's birth. Back in 2008, Obama told an audience that his father's religion didn't influence him much as his parents divorced when he was only 2 years old. "My father was basically agnostic, as far as I can tell, and I didn't know him."

Fair enough.

After divorcing his father when Obama was 2 years old, Dunham then married Lolo Soetoro, a self-identified Muslim from Indonesia. For a brief time as a child, Barack Obama went under the name Barry Soetoro.

At the age of 6, Obama, his mother and Lolo Soetoro moved to Indonesia. For two of the four years that the family lived in Jakarta, Obama attended a Catholic elementary school. But it was the two years he spent at Muslim school that seems to be the one that most people are harping on.

The rumours got so strong that at one point, the White House was forced to put out a statement affirming Obama's Christian faith.

But still there's been no shortage of people who have explicitly embraced the falsehood. I mean, I have to quote some of them here, because some of the things they suggest are wonderfully preposterous.

Laura Ingraham, a Fox News contributor filling in for Bill O'Reilly's radio show, the O'Reilly Factor, said it "seemed a bit odd" that Obama went to the gym on Christmas Day.

I love how while she's 'reporting' this, the giant cross on her necklace glints in the studio lights. Marvelous!

Another completely laughable suggestion was by Cathie Adams, former chair of Republican Party of Texas when she tweeted a video link suggesting Obama is a Muslim plant installed by the Saudi royal family.

Man, people LOVE their conspiracy theories, don't they?