they say rococo...

The Pew Research Center has released the results of a rather unsurprising survey which reveals that America's dumbass problem may be quickly growing out of control. In a sample of 3,000 people, 18% now think that President Obama is a Muslim. In a more recent poll, taken by Time magazine and Abt SRBI Inc (how's that for a catchy moniker?) after the President made his remarks about the 'ground zero mosque' found that 24% believed he was a Muslim. Which sounds about right, since the latest CNN poll on a related topic found that 26% believe Obama to be an illegal alien. The Time survey also found 33% of respondents believed that Muslims should be barred from running for president. Needless to say, the highest percentage holding these opinions identify themselves as conservatives or Republicans. Unfortunately, there is no cross-tabbing which would allow us to gage what the percent of conservatives who say Obama is a Muslim are also amongst the Birthers, but we can try and make an educated guess - 100%. All of which brings up an interesting question: Is the rising tide of the dim-witted an exclusively a conservative phenomenon? "Sadly no," says survey master Robert Pew, the man who personally makes every phone call. "The boneheaded reside equally in both of your major political parties, although the number goes up significantly when you look at those who identify with the TEA party... I don't get much data from them, however. As soon as I identify my organization they usually yell something about the lamestream media and hang up on me." "To be honest, you can't really call these beliefs, or even opinions. They're responses. For a lot of conservatives, I guess it's a lot of fun to say that Obama wasn't born in this country. And then you add being a Muslim, it's like putting a cherry on top. It's a double whammy. I mean, they might like to believe these things, but they really don't. I think they're just having a good time at my expense... You know, it's not nearly as much fun as you'd think being a pollster... And then there's always the liberal problem. You talk to them after they get off work, they've got a little buzz on, and... They like to goof on me. They put me on speaker phone... You can hear the laughter in the background. I swear, I liked this job so much better back after 911 when irony was dead."