This Explains A Lot (With Updates)

From TPM:

A new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll finds that 77% of Americans believe President Obama was Indeed Born in the United States, with only 11% saying he was not -- but there's no clear verdict among Republicans.

Among Republicans, it's a much weaker plurality of only 42% who say Obama was born in the U.S., with 28% saying he was not, with a very high undecided number of 30%. Among Democrats, the number is 93%-4%, and among independents it's 83%-8%.

This means that for Republicans to openly admit that Obama is indeed a natural-born American citizen, they risk alienating a significant chunk of their loyal base. And on the other hand, they could scare away independents by humoring the tin-foil hat crowd.

I must admit that I was a bit surprised by these numbers. For some reason, I was under the impression that the Birthers (i.e., Lou Dobbs and other people who were dropped on their heads at birth) constituted only a small -- but very vocal -- percentage of Republicans.

But now it turns out that 28% of Republicans think that Obama is an illegal alien (with 30% of the GOP "undecided" on that issue). No wonder Republicans in Congress are going out of their way to not piss off these people and why well-known racists such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are actively courting this crowd.

But then again, I shouldn't be too surprised by the numbers. After all, George W. Bush maintained around a 28% approval rating even after it was clear to just about everyone that he was one of the worst presidents in American history.

I do think it is highly likely that a large number of the Republicans who claim they think Obama is an illegal alien don't actually believe that. They instead embrace Birtherism because it is a way for them to express their personal outrage that a Negro man has been elected President of the United States. As I mentioned before, they cannot openly express their race hatred, so this is the next best thing for them.

UPDATE: At least one person agrees with me:

Politico’s Glenn Thrush asks, “When do we start a serious dialog about the Birther movement being a proxy for racism that is unacceptable to articulate in more direct terms?”

UPDATE II: The price of idiocy:

According to analysis of Nielsen data by the New York Observer, as criticism of Lou Dobbs has continued to rise over his questioning of President Obama's citizenship, his ratings at CNN have continued to go down.

In fact, Dobbs' audience has decreased 15% in total viewers and 27% in the all important age 25 to 54 demographic group since the start of the controversy.