2000s - Media scorns Truthers. Period.
2010s - Media scorns Birthers and calls them Republicans. [ArthurK]

From Friday's Best of the Web. ("The 'Birther' Metamyth" section)

These MBM pricks keep doing this! It goes back at least as far as their not noting that Oswald was a commie (didn't fit their 'right-wing city of hate' narrative).

Regarding a recent poll...

Among all Republicans, 45 percent believe he (President Obama) was born in another country, as do 45 percent of Tea Party supporters, the poll shows.

"Gee those Republicans are IDIOTS!"

However...

But here's something that bothers us about the results of this particular poll: They give us the overall results (57% say yes, he was born in the U.S., 25% say no) and specific numbers for Republicans (33% and 45%) and "Tea Party supporters" (34% and 45%), but not for Democrats and independents. ... It looks to us as if the purpose of asking the question was simply to make Republicans look foolish.

Pollsters could have done the same to Democrats during the presidency of George W. Bush, though most didn't. Politico's Ben Smith managed to track down an exception:

... the University of Ohio yesterday shared with us the crosstabs of a 2006 poll they did with Scripps Howard that's useful in that regard. "How likely is it that people in the federal government either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop the attacks because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East?" the poll asked. A full 22.6% of Democrats said it was "very likely." Another 28.2% called it "somewhat likely."

Smith cautions that "I'm still not sure this represents actual belief, as opposed to a kind of trash talk about a president you hate"--a point that applies equally to Obama detractors who assent to birther nonsense.

Ohhh. So Democrats are IDIOTS! too. It's almost as if a big difference between left and right wing citizens is how the media portray them.

BTW, in comments it would be nice to see some pre-Oswald examples.

posted by Open Blogger at 04:21 PM

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