The looniverse has been uncharacteristically quiet about this story, leaving rabid anti-Muslim blog Bare Naked Islam to pick up the torch:

Rabid Israel-hater and huge Hamas-supporter, Rep. Keith Ellison (D- MN), says GOP is the party of bigots because it opposes sharia law

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim Congressman, who was sworn in on a Quran, and took money from a group (MAS) dedicated to destroying Western civilization from within, has decided to identify anyone who has a problem with Sharia law being implemented in the United States as a bigot. Interesting, coming from a member of the most bigoted group on earth – MUSLIMS!…

Read the rest…

In case you’re wondering, MAS is the Muslim American Society, and you can read all about it on another, slightly more sophisticated hate site here.

Mother Jones also covered the story, minus the frothing-at-the-mouth editorializing.

Rep. Keith Ellison: GOP Is “Basically a Bigoted Party”

—By Tim Murphy,  Mother Jones

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the nation’s first-ever Muslim member of Congress, doesn’t mince words when asked about the Republican party’s formal proclamation that the United States is under assault from Islamic Shariah law.

“It’s an expression of bigotry,” he said on Wednesday, in an interview with Mother Jones at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. “There has never been any legislation offered to establish Shariah law—not at the federal level, not at the state level. There’s not been a municipal ordinance opposing this, there’s not been anything.”

For Ellison, the anti-Shariah plank was part of a broader narrative of exclusion.

“Why do they want to become the party of hate? They’re hating on immigrants who are from Latin America. They’re demonstrating hatred toward Muslims. They’re demonstrating hostility toward women. They act like they don’t like gay people. Who is their party supposed to be made up of in 20 years?”

“I’m sad that they have decided to go into this dark ugly place where they see the whole world as their enemy,” Ellison continued. “And this is the thing: I don’t mind debating taxes and spending; we probably should. But they’re the party that is basically a bigoted party and they have now officially declared themselves against a whole segment of the American population, because if we said we were going to put a plank opposing Jewish law, or Catholic canon, it would be an outrage. This is also an outrage. But you know, it’ll pass.”

Ellison’s remarks echoed comments he made in July after his Minnesota colleague, GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann, accused Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood. (Bachmann’s statement was condemned by some high-profile Republicans, like Arizona Sen. John McCain.) Ellison said he’s spoken with Bachmann once since the Abedin controversy—in response to a bill she was proposing to audit Medicaid recipients—but didn’t bring up the subject with her. “I don’t find that to be a productive use of my time or hers,” Ellison said. “She whipped up a million [fundraising] dollars by promulgating hate against a religious minority. I’m not gonna talk her out of that.” His plan to settle the argument is to campaign for her opponent this fall, Minneapolis hotelier Jim Graves.

“She’s always bragging about how great the private sector is. She should join it.”

Poll: GOP really dislikes Muslims

BY ALEX SEITZ-WALD (Salon.com)

Anyone wondering why Rep. Michele Bachmann would launch a witch hunt against Muslims or why the Republican Party would add a plank to its platform opposing Shariah law need look no further than a new poll conducted by the Arab American Institute.

The poll, released today, asked Americans for their views on various religious groups, as well as on Arabs and Arab-Americans. It also asked respondents how confident they would be that a Muslim or Arab-American holding a position of influence in government could do their job without letting “ethnic loyalty … influence their decision-making.”

The results are split sharply along partisan lines. Overall, Republican voters hold strongly negative views of Muslims, with 57 percent saying they view them unfavorably and just 26 saying they view them favorably — more than double. The numbers are similar for Arabs, whom Republican respondents view negatively by a slightly smaller margin of 26 percent, 53 to 27 percent. When asked about “Muslim Americans” and “Arab Americans,” the numbers improved slightly, with a 12 and 15 percent net unfavorable rating, respectively.

By contrast, Democrats held favorable views of these groups by margins of at least 20-35 percent in all four cases. The view of Muslims and Arabs among Democrats was still less positive than other religious groups included in the survey, however, underscoring a resilient problem of post-9/11 America. Still, Democrats gave no group a net negative rating, while Republicans gave negative ratings to Muslims, Arabs, Muslim-Americans and Arab-Americans.

Of the 13 religious or ethnic groups included in the survey, only Sikhs had anywhere close to the negative ratings of Muslims and Arabs. Among all respondents, the religious group is viewed favorably 45-24, but Republicans are split 36-35, with almost a third unfamiliar. All other religious groups had strongly favorable views by margins of up to 60 percent in the cases of Presbyterians and Jews.

On the question of Muslims and Arabs in the government, the results were similar. While about twice as many Democrats said they were confident a Muslim-American could do his or her job and that ethnic loyalty would not interfere, the results were flipped among Republicans. A slim majority of 51 percent said ethnic loyalty would trump job responsibility, while 25 percent said they were confident Muslim-Americans in government could do their jobs.

A boy sells flags of Palestinian factions in the street of southern Gaza strip May 14, 2007. Credit: Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa (GAZA)

According to Global Finance, Qatar has the highest gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in the world. Does this mean the Muslim-majority nation of Qatar also has the best culture in the world? According to Mitt Romney’s “logic,” apparently it does.

On his recent trip to Israel, Romney attributed Israel’s economic success vis-à-vis the Palestinians to “cultural” superiority. Forget the lavish economic aid Israel receives and the decades-long occupation of the Palestinian territories. By all means, please forget the crippling blockade that persists in Gaza. None of this factors into Mitt Romney’s cynical calculus.

This transparent appeal to a self-congratulatory, deeply racist constituency is reminiscent of the GOP’s anti-black “Southern Strategy” of the 1960s and 70s, says Deepa Kumar. Put simply, Romney is playing the race card.

The GOP’s Muslim ‘southern strategy’

by Deepa Kumar, Mondoweiss

When Mitt Romney stated that it was Israel’s “culture” that was responsible for the country’s superior economic development he was simply recycling an argument long used to explain black poverty in the US.  African American’s were poor, it was argued, because of a “culture of poverty” and a “pathology” which leads them to have children out of wedlock or become dependent on welfare. This framework, developed a few decades ago, became a staple part of political culture with both Republicans (Reagan’s famous “welfare queens”) and Democrats (Clinton’s ending of “welfare as we know it”) using it to further their electoral campaigns.

So it’s not surprising that Romney should chose to rehash this argument in the Palestinian context—its Arab “culture” that is responsible for the economic misery that Palestinians live under, right? Occupation has nothing to do with it. What we see at work here is not only a rehashing of old Orientalist frames, but the addition of Arabs and Muslims to the “Southern strategy.”

Cultivated in the 1960s and 70s, the GOP’s “Southern Strategy” was a means by which white voters in the South could be won over by subtle appeals to anti-black racism. African American men were coded as criminals to be locked up and a new form of racial control was born. Nixon and later Goldwater exploited the fear of “lawlessness,” supposedly brought on by the civil right movements, as a way to position the GOP as “tough on crime” and to win Southern whites away from the Democratic Party. Appealing to white working class voters’ anxieties about what de-segregation would mean for them economically, the GOP also argued against welfare.

The election of Obama in 2008, and Democratic victories in Southern states like Virginia and North Carolina that year, signaled a blow to the old “Southern strategy.” Yet if Obama’s African American roots were no longer going to be as useful, his Muslim familial connections would quickly rise to prominence. Obama was “accused” during his campaign of being a “secret Muslim,” a charge that would come back again and again reaching a crescendo during the “Ground Zero mosque” controversy in 2010. 18% of the public believed that Obama was Muslim in 2010. This figure remains about the same today, but larger numbers of conservative GOP voters (34%) identify Obama as Muslim in 2012 than in 2008 (when the number was 16%).

The new GOP Southern strategy now highlights Muslims and Arabs as the key threats to national security and “law and order,” even while the old one lingers on. This strategy is not subtle in its racist appeals in the way that anti-black racism had to be in the post-civil rights era. It is much more blatant drawing upon a long history of bipartisan attacks on Arabs and Muslims.

Thus, Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass) is raising money for his reelection campaign in part by praising the endorsement of a libertarian blogger who claims Obama is Muslim. Similarly Michelle Bachmann’s accusation that Hillary Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin is a Muslim Brotherhood (MB) agent is a part of this approach. It is a means of appealing to the Republican base (about 25% of the electorate) which holds far right wing values.

For this base, Romney is not a candidate they can get excited about (as was evident in the GOP presidential primaries). When Bachmann accused Abedin of infiltrating the government on behalf of the MB she was both employing McCarthyite type fear mongering tactics and positioning the Republican party, and Romney, as a “lesser evil.” That is, if Romney is not the darling of the far right, he is certainly better than a Democratic Party infiltrated by Muslim agents (be they Obama or Abedin).

Bachmann’s attack on Abedin, and its ringing endorsement by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and the far right wing media apparatus, demonstrated that she could corral this base and bring them along on a Romney-Bachmann ticket. When asked on CNN about her VP ambitions Bachmann coyly replied that it was not her decision to make. More recently, John Bolton (a key Romney foreign policy advisor) expressed disagreement at the push back Bachmann was facing and came to her defense….

Read the Rest

Sen. Dick Durbin dropping some truth about the Republicans:

Majority Whip Sen. Durbin: GOP candidates at war with Islam

Majority Whip Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) appeared on Starting Point with Soledad O’Brien to discuss the flare up of violence in Afghanistan.

Durbin says, “And understand, just go back to history a little bit to 9/11, President George W. Bush, I sure had my differences with him, but I thought he got it right, and he stuck with it through his presidency. He said our war is not with the religion of Islam. Our war is with those who would distort it and turn it into terrorism. And I think that was a bright spot kind of a guiding principle. It was adopted by President Obama. Now, listen to these Republican candidates for president. They’re at war with Islam.”

CNN Contributor Will Cain counters, “Senator Durbin, I haven’t heard one thing that backs up what you suggest. Just give me an example, how are they at war with Islam?

Referencing the Quran burnings, Durbin replies, “Newt Gingrich saying that the president is guilty of appeasement…. What you listen to is incendiary rhetoric coming out in a very delicate situation. Lives are at stake here. The president is showing leadership. The president is stepping up, trying to calm a situation. These three candidates are coming on television doing the opposite.”

Starting Point with Soledad O’Brien airs week mornings from 7-9am ET on CNN.

Colbert believes that under the sea, Bin Laden might be finding young impressionable dolphins who are willing to wage Jihad.

Starts at 2:23-4:14

Colbert Report: ThreatDown – Barack Obama, Fundamentalist Flippers & Coked Up Diplomats

Barack Obama plays the same old dirty political trick of being irresistibly appealing, the Navy trains dolphins to sweep for mines, and the U.N. receives 35 pounds of cocaine. (06:11)

The prototypical demagogue: Father Charles Coughlin

Eric L. Lewis: Demagoguery and Sharia: Reviving an American Tradition

Muslim bashing has become an official part of the Republican playbook. As the New York Times reports on Dec. 21, Newt Gingrich, the erstwhile frontrunner, has declared:

“I believe Shariah is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it.”

Presumably judges in a Gingrich administration who recognize Sharia law will not only be dragged to Capitol Hill by the police, but impeached. “No judge will remain in office that tried to use sharia law,” Gingrich has stated.

Gingrich is not alone. Mitt Romney declared in 2007 that it was “not likely” that he would have a Muslim in his cabinet, and this year echoed Gingrich: “Of course, we’re not going to have Shariah law applied in U.S. courts.”

Rick Santorum, largely ignored but now getting his 15 minutes from Iowa voters, declared Sharia incompatible with democracy, “A democracy could not exist because Muhammad already made the perfect law. The Koran is perfect just the way it is, that’s why it is only written in Islamic [sic].”

Echoing Gingrich’s own apocalyptic warnings, he calls Sharia “an existential threat” to the United States.

Michele Bachmann declared in response to the killing of Osama Bin Laden: “This is the beginning of the end of Sharia compliant terrorism.”

Rick Perry has been attacked for signing a bill prohibiting the mislabeling of non-halal meat as halal. One commentator suggested Perry was ‘putting the Texas state government in the position of enforcing Islamic dietary laws, a part of sharia.”

The candidates have picked up on a strand of know-nothingism also at work in the states. Nearly two dozen states have introduced laws in the past two years to ban the use of Sharia in court cases. Seventy percent of Oklahoma voters approved a no Sharia initiative, and a state senator in Tennessee tried to make following Sharia a felony punishable by 15 years in jail.

Is there really an issue here? Our laws are secular. Religious groups often compete to have their notions of morality enacted into law. Indeed, religious Catholics, Jews and Muslims often agree on such hot button issues as abortion or gay marriage. Moreover, Sharia law, like other religious laws, is not monolithic. There are numerous schools of Islamic law and, although there are common threads, the laws in Muslim countries differ greatly and there is great scope for judges to exercise their conscience and their discretion. The specter of stonings and amputations is a caricature of Islamic law. In any event, American Muslims are not agitating for veilings or beheadings (although the U.S. alone, among modern democracies, shares approval for the death penalty).

To the extent that Muslim organizations support laws that accord with their beliefs and act within the democratic process, their actions are no different than the actions of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops or the American Jewish Committee. And the threat of some takeover of Sharia by stealth or against the democratic will is absurd. Muslims constitute less than 5 percent of the population. To the extent that Muslims are trying to have certain aspects of private or religious life governed by traditional laws, they are also well within the American mainstream. American Jews often bring disputes, voluntarily, to the Beth Din — the Jewish courts that enforce traditional Jewish law and the decrees of such courts are enforced like any other voluntary agreement to delegate decision-making to an arbitrary forum. Beth Dins also issue decrees on such issues as divorce, certifying kosher establishments, burial, conversion and the like. Such decisions are not binding in secular courts, but give voluntary guidance to religious people who accept the authority of those courts. Religious courts granting religious divorces or making rulings on aspects of religious practice do not impinge on the rights of the majority or anyone other than those who voluntarily seek their authority.

In addition, religious groups have sought the protection of state laws to protect their religious rights. Jews have successfully argued for kosher slaughter laws virtually identical to the Halal law in Texas. New York and New Jersey have full time divisions of kosher enforcement, staffed by rabbis, that inspect establishments that offer kosher food for sale. Is that the state imposing religious law? Of course not. It is part of the reasonable accommodation that is made to treat religious practice with respect and to allow people to live religious lives within the context of a secular republic. To the extent that Muslims wish to have their practices accorded a certain amount of protection and respect or allow religious courts to provide guidance or voluntary resolution of disputes, this fits well within the tradition of religious minorities incorporating traditional institutions into American life without compromising on the secular legal tradition.

Stoking the irrational fear of being overtaken by alien religious doctrine is nothing new in American life. A. Lawrence Lowell, President of Harvard, opposed the nomination of Louis Brandeis, the first Jew ever to sit on the Supreme Court, arguing:

“For the first time in our history a man has been nominated to the Supreme Court with a view to attracting to the President a group of voters on racial grounds. Converting the United States into a Government by foreign groups is to me the most fatal thing that can happen to our Government . . . “

Attacks on Al Smith suggested he would take orders from the Pope when he ran for president in 1928, a charge that was echoed by Norman Vincent Peale when John Kennedy ran for President in 1960.

The fear of Muslim domination is nothing more than a tool for demagoguery. Fear of the other mobilizes votes. But the Muslim world follows our elections closely. We cannot call for tolerance in Islamic societies while candidates for the highest office stoke the flames of intolerance. We cannot hope for an Arab Spring while at the same time arguing for an anti-Islamic winter.

To be sure, there are “mortal threats” to the United States. Sharia is not one of them. By alienating American Muslims and the Muslim world by denigrating their law and culture only aggravates the real threats that we face.

(cross-posted from Think Progress, h/t JD)

By Eli Clifton on Nov 18, 2011 at 6:00 pm

Having drawn condemnation from both Muslim community organizations and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for his call to purge Muslims from the U.S. military, Tennessee State Rep. Rick Womick (R-Mufreesboro) decided to double-down on his anti-Muslim message in an interview with the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer.

Womick told Fischer that unless the Muslim community “gets its act together” on Shariah, “they can go back to where they came from.”

The comments, reported by RightWingWatch.org, would indicate that Womick is rejecting the ADL’s call to repudiate his “shameful, deeply disturbing” remarks.

Womick attempted to clarify the remarks he made to ThinkProgress on Veterans Day but only seemed to dig himself in deeper. He said:

WOMICK: My point is, this is my opinion, this is what they asked me, that day on Veterans Day. ‘What do you do about it?’ [I said] well, I can’t tell who the good Muslim is and who the bad Muslim is. And political correctness is not working. What choice do I have? My solution is, and I guarantee you this will work, you don’t let any Muslims serve in the military. You force the Muslim community to get its act together and clean its house and step up and speak out against Shariah law or they’re not a part of not only our military but since they want [inaudible] on our constitution, they can go back to where they came from.

Listen to it:

What exactly Womick means by calling on Muslim Americans to “clean their house” is unclear. A recent Gallup poll found that Muslim Americans are most likely (89%) to reject violent attacks by individuals or small groups on civilians versus any other U.S. religious group.

Perhaps more importantly, a January pew poll showed that 35.5% of Muslims in the U.S. are native born and by 2030, that percentage is projected to increase to 44.9%. Womick’s suggestion that Muslim Americans are all foreign born or can be sent “back to where they came from” ignores the over 200 hundred year history of Muslims in the U.S.

Politicians are politely avoiding Tea Party Convention

by Scott Powers (Orlando Sentinel)

The Tea Party opens a long-planned convention tonight in Daytona Beach, expecting 1,200 delegates, dozens of speakers — but almost no big-name politicians.

None of the leading Republican presidential candidates and only two of the five U.S. Senate candidates agreed to speak at the three-day Florida Tea Party Convention at the Volusia County Ocean Center.

And top Republican officeholders who have previously courted Tea Party support — Gov. Rick Scott, Attorney General Pam Bondi, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and U.S. Rep. Allen West of Plantation — also sent their regrets.

Organizers said they still expect two presidential candidates: U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. But neither campaign would confirm they’re coming, and their campaign schedules don’t list the convention.

Sid VanLandingham, the convention’s communications director, blamed the busy campaign season, saying a regional event has a tough time competing for attention.

“The [politicians'] schedulers, they’re making last-minute decisions, hopping from place to place, and it’s changing constantly,” he said.

In fact, all of the politicians who responded to Sentinel inquiries cited scheduling conflicts, though the convention dates were set months ago. And their absence leaves many observers puzzled, considering how popular tea-party events have been among most Republican candidates.

Liberals say the depiction of tea partyers as “extremists” — especially on issues such as immigration — is prompting candidates to keep their distance.

“A lot of politicians are worried about being painted by that association, especially as we get into the real meat of the election cycle,” said Mark Ferrulo, executive director of the liberal, Tallahassee-based Progress Florida.

The convention has attracted more than 30 political and social conservatives — many from out of state — as speakers. Among them: John Michael Chambers, founder of the Save America Foundation; Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith & Freedom Coalition; and Mathew Staver, founder of the Liberty Counsel.

VanLandingham, whose home group is the South Lake 912 Tea Party of Clermont, said the big-name politicians might have been a draw, but they are not the point.

“It’s a grass-roots gathering of people from around the state to share what works, what doesn’t work, and to share projects,” he said, citing workshops on how to organize for the 2012 elections.

The only statewide candidates expected to come are Mike McCalister of Plant City and Craig Miller of Winter Park, both underdog candidates for U.S. Senate.

Those who expressly said they are not coming include GOP presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich and Jon Huntsman, and GOP Senate candidates Adam Hasner, George LeMieux and U.S. Rep. Connie Mack.

A whirlwind of controversy in the past two weeks could have played a role, after the convention invited anti-Islam activist Pamela Geller to speak and an American Muslim civil-rights group, the Council of American-Islamic Relations, protested.

“They [CAIR] put pressure, I think, on some of the state officials, and I think some of the state officials, in their judgments, they declined to go,” VanLandingham said. “Their [the officials'] reasons were ‘prior commitments.’ ”

Geller writes an anti-Islam blog called Atlas Shrugs and leads an organization called “Stop Islamization of America.” Last year, she received wide attention — and stoked bitter anger from American Muslim groups — with her harshly worded opposition to a proposed Muslim community center a few blocks from ground zero in New York City.

Last month, CAIR sent letters to Florida politicians urging them not to attend the convention if Geller was on the schedule. And when Rubio and Scott indicated they would not come, CAIR issued a news release thanking them.

Geller said CAIR tries to get her appearances canceled or boycotted wherever she goes. But she said she is certain her appearance in Daytona had nothing to do with all the declined invitations.

“The politicians decided not to participate before this controversy began,” she said in an email.

But CAIR is not so sure.

“In other states, elected officials have pulled out and do not want to be on the same stage as her,” said CAIR media-relations director Ahmed Rehab.

Nezar Hamze

Florida County Republican Party Appeases Islamophobia And Denies Muslim Republican A Spot On Executive Committee

(ThinkProgress)

Nezar Hamze is both a Muslim American who is the executive directorof the South Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and a self-identified Republican. As a way to further his activism in the Republican Party, Hamze campaigned for a position on his local Republican party’s executive committee in Broward County, Florida.

During a “raucous meeting” of the party on Monday night, Hamze’s bid for committee membership was rejected by a vote of 11-158, as he was attacked with offensive questions about his faith and even compared to a terrorist by Islamophobic attendees.

Before the vote even took place, the local party changed its rules to require that each new applicant to the executive committee answer questions for five minutes, a rule change Hamze jokingly told a reporter could be called the “Hamze rule.” And as audience members stepped up to interrogate Hamze, he was told that his organization CAIR was identified as a terrorist organization and asked if he supported terrorism. Following the lead of GOP audiences who have booed gays and condemned the uninsured, one attendee yelled out “terrorist!” as Hamze was trying to speak:

At times, when he addressed the packed room at the Sheraton Suites in Fort Lauderdale, a few members shouted out among the crowd of about 300.

“Terrorist!” said one man.

After the vote, Hamze said he wished he had received a letter of denial rather than face such a barrage of hostile questions. One Republican member remarked that Hamze had effectively been “singled out“:

“Wow,” [Hamze] said afterward. “If I had realized it would be like that, I wish they had just sent me a letter saying I was denied.” One Broward Republican member, blogger Javier Manjarres, objected to the process. “They singled him out,” Manjarres said. “It was a set up.”

Before seeking a spot on his local party’s committee, Hamze told the Florida Independent that the main reason he was making his bid was to bring “Muslims to the mainstream political process.” Yet it appears that the Broward County Republican Party seems to believe that Hamze has to be either a Muslim or a Republican, but not both.

Poll: Many S.C. Republicans think Obama a Muslim, born in another country

President Barack Obama has released his detailed, long-form birth certificate that shows he was born in Hawaii. And the president has said he is a Christian.

But a Winthrop Poll released today shows that large numbers of S.C. Republicans and those who lean toward the Republican Party don’t believe him.

Nearly 73 percent said the word “honest” does not describe the president well. Almost 30 percent of self-identified S.C. Republicans and Republican-leaning voters say Obama is a Muslim, and 36 percent say the president “probably” or “definitely” was born in another country.

For a few years of his childhood, Obama lived in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation. Obama, however, has insisted he is a Christian, just as he has maintained that he was born in Hawaii.

With some Republicans arguing Obama was not born in the U.S. – and thus is ineligible to serve as the nation’s chief executive – the president released his long-form birth certificate that showed that he was born in Hawaii on Aug. 4, 1961.

A birth notice in a Hawaii newspaper also indicates that the president was born where and when he says he was.

But the release of that long-form birth certificate has only partially mollified those who questioned the details of the president’s birth.

A Winthrop poll from April, before the president released the detailed birth certificate, found 43 percent of S.C. Republicans and Republican leaners said the president was “probably” or “definitely” born in another country. About 45 percent said he was “definitely” or “probably” born in the United States. Now, that percentage has crept up to 53 percent.

Whether or not they think Obama was born in the United States, S.C. Republicans and Republican leaners still don’t have much use for the president, the poll shows.

More than three-quarters of those polled say the word “intelligent” describes the president “very well” or “well.” But about 75 percent say the same thing about the word “socialist.”

Original post: Poll: Many S.C. Republicans think Obama a Muslim, born in another country