Democracy– rule by public opinion — is something lauded in our country and around the world. But the public, quite frankly, is often easily duped into believing things that just aren’t so.
[picapp align=”left” wrap=”true” link=”term=obama+muslim&iid=9544144″ src=”http://view4.picapp.com/pictures.photo/image/9544144/president-barack-obama/president-barack-obama.jpg?size=500&imageId=9544144″ width=”234″ height=”141″ /]A recent prime example might be the results of two recent polls. One Pew survey found that 18 percent of Americans actually believe that President Obama is a Muslim. That number has actually risen over time. This is despite a year and a half of Obama in office for the public to get to know him better. Another poll, from TIME, found that 24 percent believe Obama, actually a professed Christian, is a Muslim.
This perhaps can be blamed partly on the prevalence of dubious chain emails with claims about political figures that are just too good to be true. But the real blame falls mainly on Americans all-too-willing to remain ignorant of facts.