Stupid in America

On Sunday Nicholas Kristof reported in his New York Times column that almost a third of voters either "know" that Barack Obama is a Muslim or believe that he could be a Muslim. (If he were a Muslim, so what? Nevertheless, at this time in this country, a Muslim would not be elected president.)

Kristof continues: The Pew Research Center has just concluded that only half of Americans know Obama is a Christian. In March, 10 percent said he was a Muslim. In June, 12 percent. Today, 13 percent.

On some "Christian" radio stations, they talk about Obama being the Antichrist. (About ten percent of Americans think we may be in the apocalyptic "end times" with the Antichrist just around the corner.) A commercial web site sells T-shirts and bumper stickers with a large "O" with horns above the words "The Anti-Christ."

And Kristof adds: "Just imagine for a moment if it were the black candidate in this election, rather than the white candidate, who was born in Central America, was an indifferent churchgoer, had graduated near the bottom of his university class, had dumped his first wife, had regularly displayed an explosive and profane temper, and had referred to the Pakistani-Iraqi border."

But what is most interesting in this article is Kristof's opinion that "religious prejudice is becoming a proxy for racial prejudice. In public at least, it’s not acceptable to express reservations about a candidate’s skin color, so discomfort about race is sublimated into concerns about whether Mr. Obama is sufficiently Christian. The result is this campaign to 'otherize' Mr. Obama. Nobody needs to point out that he is black, but there’s a persistent effort to exaggerate other differences, to de-Americanize him."

These are very rotten times indeed.