Responding to an AP piece on how the number of Americans who believe incorrectly that Barack Obama is a Muslim has increased, John Hinderaker shows the world he loves truthiness like a fat kid loves cake (via Jamison Foser):
I love that "incorrectly." The AP has evolved into an opinion machine, so it's rare and a little startling to see it stand up so boldly for a "fact." He's not a Muslim, dammit!
I mean yeah, Obama identifies as a Christian. That's not a "fact"; that's just a fact. But this is how conservative media criticism works, if the media isn't reporting conservative falsehoods with the same degree of weight as actual facts, then they're editorializing.
Hinderaker does inadvertently suggest, however, why this belief continues to persist despite being completely untrue:
The second factor, I think, is Obama's effort to project a post-American, above-America persona. Obama postures as a citizen of the world who has graced America by condescending to be our President and to instruct us. Some liberals accept this posturing gratefully, but most Americans don't. Obama has defined himself as literally exotic. Small wonder that some Americans attribute exotic qualities to him. We're not sure who he is, exactly, but he certainly isn't one of us. Given the currents that swirl through world events these days, being a Muslim is one interpretation of Obama's exoticism. Those who construe Obama in this way may well be wrong, but it is not hard to understand why they interpret his aloof non-Americanism in this way.
Hinderaker is mad that the AP isn't reporting as fact an interpretation of a feeling that some conservatives have about "the currents that swirl through world events." Feel free to snap your fingers when you're done reading. As Dave Weigel writes, "To be American is to agree with John Hinderaker; to disagree is to be a Muslim."
Still, I think on some level, Hinderaker is right. Some conservatives see Obama as being different from them, and they deploy "Muslim" as an epithet to express their suspicion and anger toward him. I'm sure part of it also has to do with conservative elites reinforcing or at least winking at the notion that Obama is being deceptive about his religious beliefs and that describing someone as a "Muslim" is some kind of an insult. As the Pew poll notes, "Beliefs about Obama’s religion are closely linked to political judgments about him. Those who say he is a Muslim overwhelmingly disapprove of his job performance, while a majority of those who think he is a Christian approve of the job Obama is doing." In a less politically correct time they probably would have used a different word.
Ben Smith writes that "what's eye-opening, perhaps, is that 'Muslim' is a term of abuse for so many Americans." I don't think that's particularly eye-opening. If it wasn't a term of abuse we wouldn't have heard so much about it during the 2008 election, because it wouldn't have been an effective smear. "Obama is a secret astronaut" just doesn't have the same punch. Remember John McCain explaining to one of his supporters that Obama wasn't an "Arab" but "a good family man?" Obviously not all Arabs are Muslims, and not all Muslims are Arabs, but I'm not sure how many Americans with hostile feelings toward Muslims make the distinction.
What's eye-opening is that negative feelings toward Muslims are now part of how Republicans perceive their own political identities, part of a way of showing you disapprove of Obama's policies. That's what's really dangerous, because American politics is so based on mastering gestures of authenticity that in the future, Republican audiences may evaluate their candidates in part based on whether or not they hold sufficiently negative views about Muslims.
Or as prominent conservative Islamophobe Andy McCarthy puts it, "The question will be: Where do you stand on sharia?"
