Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
From Allahpundit, a conservative, on the phenomenon of people thinking Obama is a Muslim:
It's all very lame and obnoxious, especially given the testimony from pastors that Obama takes his Christian faith seriously, but much like the Birther thing, there's virtually nothing you can say to convince someone who's sure that O is what he thinks he is. I recommend re-reading Karl's post from earlier this month on the phenomenon of polling Birthers, as it holds plenty of applicable wisdom in this case too. Essentially, when polling people who dislike candidate X, the specifics of the questions are almost irrelevant. As long as they're negatively inclined -- e.g., "Is Obama a werewolf?" -- you'll get a certain core percentage willing to say yes.
Bingo.
Politics
Comments
Wait so Obama is a Werewolf! I knew it ;)
Posted by: EKM | August 24, 2010 10:44 AM
I'd pay good money for polling data to see how many people think Obama is the anti-Christ.
Posted by: History Punk | August 24, 2010 10:50 AM
We're also seeing this phenomena with most Republican politicians who want to maintain a very short distance from false claims like where President Obama was born or his religious affliation. I think its indicative of conservative politicians perceiving that conservative voters on the right no longer seek leaders (see Reagan and Goldwater) but instead someone just like them (see Boehner, Kantor, McConnell and Mccain version.2010 as they now do their best Sarah Palin imitation).
In the past principled ideologues attempted to reveal they had character by calling out inconvenient truths against one's own tribe. Sen. McCain telling the crazy lady at the '08 townhall meeting Obama was a good American who he merely disagreed with being one of the few recent examples.
Last evening Chris Matthews really went after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's attempts to thread this very needle in his Sunday Meet the Press interview being the latest illuminating example. I didn't think there was sufficient evidence to be so harsh, therefore I was surprised Matthews was so critical since his tendency is usually to give others the benefit of the doubt - to the extent his apologia is frequently defective. Therefore I'd expect him to be the last person to go to the other extreme and call-out McConnell's supposed enablement of the Obama birther-Muslim attributions on the vagaries given by Sen. McConnell who even admitted he took Obama "at his word" regarding his religious affiliation (where Matthews believes "at his word" enables the viral meme that Obama is a Muslim to thrive given a one-time verbal gaffe by Obama in a George Stephanopoulos interview).
Posted by: Michael Heath | August 24, 2010 11:00 AM
Werewolf? I thought he was a vampire.
I'm sure the WingNutDaily will claim that he is both.
Posted by: Herod the Freemason | August 24, 2010 11:03 AM
Correction: Obama is half werewolf.
Same thing, really, as his father was the werewolf. Like Judaism, where Jewishness is carried on the mother's side, werewolfishness is carried by the father. This isn't about the werewolves' "rights" under the 1st Amendment to worship the moon. This is about sensitivity to the victims who were attacked by mummies on 10/31. Allowing a werewolf to live in the White House is like letting a frankenstein live in the lab. And we shouldn't let werewolves serve in office until Saudi Arabia lets non-werewolves serve in theirs. And we can't have illegal were-immigrants sneakin' over the border, dropping their anchor-cubs and sapping and impurifying all of our precious bodily fluids. Yes, yes, I know that liberalactivistjudges say that the 14th Amendment so-called "guarantees" the right of American-born werewolves to live among us, but we have to reexamine the 14th and take its interpretation back to what it was before it existed.
Posted by: Modusoperandi | August 24, 2010 11:03 AM
I guess Republicans are Team Edward.
Posted by: Brandon | August 24, 2010 11:05 AM
Actually, President Obama is the Anti-Christ as prophesied in the Christian Bible. End snark.
Posted by: SLC | August 24, 2010 11:07 AM
You'd run into all sorts of definitional problems trying to do that, but my mother is one of those people.
Granted, she also watches "prophecy in the news" and breathlessly attempts to tell me about the latest discovered link between something and the bible or god or demons or something.
Posted by: Ben P | August 24, 2010 11:20 AM
@Modusoperandi: That was brilliant.
@Brandon: So McCain and Palin are vampires? I'm not saying that they are, I'm just asking the question so y'all can consider the evidence and work it out for yourselves.
Posted by: Emily | August 24, 2010 11:27 AM
Definitely - he is a member of "Werwolf", the secret partisan organization set up by Adolf Hitler as he was about to lose WW II, and a product of their ambitious Aryan/Kenyan crossbreeding program to create the Über-Brownshirt of the future. Indoctrinated into the Muslimoatheistisocialist faith from birth and possessing genetically-engineered hypnotic superpowers, his Manchurian-Candidate-like take-over of America was planned at length, starting with a fake birth announcement in a Hawai'ian newspaper paid for by nobody less than Reichsmarschall (the Rev.) Satan von Rothschild-Hitler himself, the secret facist leader of the Elders of Zion chapter of the Bilderberg group.
Posted by: Phillip IV | August 24, 2010 11:29 AM
WEREWOLF?! Are you kidding me?! He's a vampire! All unamerican nonathletic good-looking innelekshuls are vampires! Werewolves are muscular, athletic, hierarchical, and obedient to authority, therefore they represent Real America. Vampires are unsociable socialists who hate Real America. Geez, you wussy libruls don't even watch the right movies...
Posted by: Raging Bee | August 24, 2010 11:30 AM
There was a Harris poll back in March that asked the anti-christ question:
http://www.livescience.com/culture/obama-anti-christ-100325.html
Posted by: Bob | August 24, 2010 11:45 AM
As a non-USian I still find it almost amusing how obsessed Americans seem to be with the faith of their leaders.
Pretty much any country (other than the US) I ever lived in any leader who would wax on about their believes and how it "guides" them would get the boot by the next election if not directly by their party.
Only in America, eh?
Posted by: Michael | August 24, 2010 11:55 AM
How do you label Obama as "non-athletic?" He was a college varsity basketball player. Also, judging by a picture I saw of him the other day, in which he was wearing swim trunks, he's pretty ripped. So I think the werewolf assertion is holding up just fine. Well, except that you said werewolves are "hierarchical, and obedient to authority." I'm not sure that describes Obama. And I'm also sure it doesn't describe werewolves -- if you remember Jack Nicholson's character in the excellent documentary "Wolf," he wasn't at all obedient to authority, so that pretty much settles it.
Posted by: DaveD | August 24, 2010 12:00 PM
"Now, you could even argue whether being a Werewolf is actually a species, or is it a curse, way of life, cult whatever you want to call it"
Posted by: Dennis N | August 24, 2010 12:36 PM
Modusoperandi has just been nominated to the Republican ticket for 2012.
Posted by: Schmeer | August 24, 2010 12:47 PM
Modusoperandi, that was just.....well, that was just beautiful.
Posted by: Rick R | August 24, 2010 1:02 PM
Obama's a werewolf?
I knew it!
I bet he's also a vampire/zombie/yeti/unicorn.
Posted by: Fifth Dentist | August 24, 2010 1:04 PM
I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand
walkin through the streets of Washington in the rain.
He was lookin for the place called Lee Ho Fooks, gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein.
Aaahoo, werewolves of Washington
Aaahoo, werewolves of Washington
Ya hear him howlin around your kitchen door, ya better not let him in.
Little old lady got mutilated late last night, werewolves of Washington again.
Aaahoo, werewolves of Washington
Aaahoo, werewolves of Washington
He's the hairy, hairy gent, who ran amok in Kenya.
Lately he's been overheard in Indonesia.
You better stay away from him, he'll rip your brains out Sarah.
Huh, I'd like to meet his tailor.
Aaahoo, werewolves of Washington
Aaahoo, werewolves of Washington
Well, I saw Dick Cheney walkin like a queen, doing the werewolves of Washington.
I saw Dick Cheney walkin like a queen, doin the werewolves of Washington
I saw a werewolf drinkin a pina colada at Trader Vic's
And his hair was perfect.
Aaahoo, werewolves of Washington
Aaahoo, werewolves of Washington
Draw blood
(With apologies to Warren Zevon.)
Posted by: blf | August 24, 2010 2:26 PM
Some of my best friends are werewolves. I like werewolves. I just don't think other people in our country are ready for a werewolf president. Also, I wouldn't let a werewolf near my children.
Posted by: rob | August 24, 2010 2:36 PM
This is dead on. Remember that crap during the 2000 election about "who you'd rather have a beer with"? Notice how right wingers are obsessed with having term limits towards the point of having only complete imbeciles in office?
@5: Very nice.
Posted by: Objective Scrutator | August 24, 2010 2:37 PM
Neither Obama,Palin Or Mccain are cool enough to be vampires or werewolves.Palin does qualify as a pink elephant however.
Posted by: Paen | August 24, 2010 3:33 PM
I think any connection of President Obama [1] with unicorns runs into the universally-agreed-upon [2] lack of qualifying sexual traits among the females close to him.
I swear, I don't know how MtS and MO stand it.
[1] Ever notice how the Right never uses his title?
[2] At least at the WND
Posted by: D. C. Sessions | August 24, 2010 3:52 PM
It might be interesting to run a poll dedicated to asking whether people think Obama is likely to be a variety of silly things: Christian, Atheist, Moslem, Scientologist, Woman, Werewolf, Martian, Count Dracula...
Alas, probably too expensive.
Posted by: abb3w | August 24, 2010 4:11 PM
I wonder how many polls it would take asking people "Do you believe that Sarah Palin is a secret atheist?" or "Pawlenty claims to be a Christian, but some people have suggested that he is really a Buddhist. What do you think?" before a significant number of people started saying they agreed with those claims.
Posted by: Vicki | August 24, 2010 4:44 PM
D. C. Sessions, it's easy. I'll get you started:
1. Pretend everything is black & white (absolute Good or absolute Evil, absolute Truth or absolute lie, absolute right or absolute wrong, absolute "in-group" or absolute "Other").
2. Beside your mental picture of you, check the box marked "Good".
3. Pretend to know nothing much about anything. Revel in that ignorance. Let your lack of factual foundation be your foundation.
4. Pretend that you've surrounded yourself with others exactly like you, forming a closed loop or coccoon of Truth and Good. Your "tribe" (a rigid authoritarian structure where everyone has their role; obey those above and make sure those below obey you/support the in-group, marginalize the out-group/love the tribe, fear the "Other"), if you will, where the greatest crime is dissent.
5. Pretend that assertion = fact, and that repetition = Truth.
6. Based on the above, make wide-ranging but reality-free judgements and proclamations on everyone and everything that doesn't fit your starkly defined view of Good.
There's more to it than that (like blaming your own failures and projecting your own paranoia and zeal on your "Other"), but that should be enough to get you started on the long road to skewering a group that is incapable of getting the joke (you may even get a sliver of empathy for them). Sure, you'll feel a bit dirty at first, but it's worth it for the word play and mental gymnastics.
The general goal, if there can be said to be one, is to Poe in such a way that liberals get the joke, but conservatives don't*. This is harder than it sounds as, in part, actual conservatives keep raising the bar. The crazy bar. And every time they raise it it goes down. It's that crazy.
* Alternately, as I normally do, simply amuse yourself by opening a warm jar of conservative absurdity and luxuriously smearing it all over yourself as you nakedly strut around the open and breezy public square of the internet.
Posted by: Modusoperandi | August 24, 2010 4:46 PM
ModusOperandi, #5 — Beautifully done!
"Correction: Obama is half werewolf.
Same thing, really, as his father was the werewolf. Like Judaism, where Jewishness is carried on the mother's side, werewolfishness is carried by the father."
Yes, and this is why Obama can play basketball well into his forties.
Ref. the Michael J. Fox movie Teen Wolf
Posted by: Chris Winter | August 24, 2010 7:39 PM
Emily - So McCain and Palin are vampires? "
I would say that McCain and Palin both suck, so ... yeah.
It does fit, with the Moosejaw Momma shooting werewolves in the Alaskan tundra. Trying to thin out the competition, protect her herd?
Posted by: Badger3k | August 24, 2010 8:04 PM
Ed, I know it's proper form to cite your sources, so understand that I'm not criticizing your honesty...but linking to that Hot Air piece made my head hurt. I had to stop reading when someone - apparently in all seriousness* - suggested that Obama's cuts to NASA were secretly going to Muslims:
I mean, I'm not exactly thrilled about the NASA cuts (astronomy having been my first real scientific interest), but this insinuation - in the classic "just asking questions" format - is beyond bizarre.
Also, "muzzies" is a new one for me.
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*And not realizing that other people would read it as well, I guess.
Posted by: The Christian Cynic | August 24, 2010 10:26 PM
@SLC
You might find it interesting that the word "antichrist" appears the bible (you know, the "official" one, the King James version) exactly once. As a plural.
Yup, the ol' antichrist gets a lot of play in the bible.
Posted by: The Gregarious Misanthrope | August 25, 2010 1:17 AM
WereKenyan -- turns into a Kenyan every full Moon?
This would not be any more silly than conventional birther conspiracy theory.
Posted by: Childermass | August 25, 2010 8:06 AM