Democracy Has Prevailed.

August 19, 2009

Just How Stupid ARE The Birthers?

From a poll from Public Policy Polling.

First off how many "birthers" are there?
The answer is that 62% of Americans think Obama was born here, while 24% think he was not and 14% are unsure.
So 38% are ignorant of the fact that Obama was born in the US.

PPP breaks down that 38% into:
10% of the country thinks that he was born in Indonesia, 7% think he was born in Kenya, and 1% think he was born in the Philippines.

That leaves 20%, which includes at least some people who correctly believe that Obama was born in Hawaii, but who don't consider Hawaii to be part of the United States. You read that right- 6% of poll respondents think that Hawaii is not part of the country and 4% are unsure.
How stupid are these people?

The full results are here.

Digging deeper into the crosstabs. Looking at both data-sets (Was Obama born in the US and the education of the person answering the question we see that;
  1. Of those with some post-graduate education, 70% said YES while 30% said NO or WEREN'T SURE (split 19/11).
  2. Of those with a bachelor's degree, 66% said YES and 34% said NO or WEREN'T SURE (split 22/12).
  3. Of those with a some college, 56% said YES and 45% said NO or WEREN'T SURE (split 31/14).
  4. Of those who graduated high school, 49% said YES and 50% said NO or WEREN'T SURE (split 28/22).
  5. Of those who didn't graduate High School, 48% said YES while 52% said NO or WEREN'T SURE (split 33/19).
And let's be clear here - it's a fact that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. We're not talking about something subjective here. If this part of this poll is to be believed (and there's no reason why it shouldn't be), the less educated you are the more likely you are to be a birther.

12 comments:

Conservative Mountaineer said...

Knock knocK!
Who's there?
Kenya.
Kenya who?



Kenya show me your birth certifcate.



Lighten up, Francis! It's funny!

Joshua said...

Knock knock!
Who's there?
F**k.
F**k who?
F**k you!

Lighten up jackass, it's a joke!

Conservative Mountaineer said...

Wow. Straight to the foul language. I'm impressed. Not.

Conservative Mountaineer said...

Hey, Joshua...

Do you know how God and Obama are alike?

Neither has a birth certificate.

Do you know how God and Obama are different?

God doesn't think he's Obama.

Clyde Wynant said...

Hey Mountaineer -

See #5 above.

EdHeath said...

Gee, CM, it would be terrible if Obama was born in Kenya, although it would be something that he had no control over.

Not like a President who violated military regulations while in the Air National Guard or who committed (possibly) illegal acts as President.

Dayvoe said...

Ed;

POSSIBLY??

Ellipses said...

Knock Knock
Who's there?
God
God who?
God is a myth

Knock knock
Who's there?
Mayonaise
Mayonaise who?
Mayonaise a lotta dumb people in the world

the Other Ken said...

"Not like a President who violated military regulations while in the Air National Guard"

And you have a 'fake but true" memo to prove it, right?

You people are truly unbelievable.

Dayvoe said...

Ken, The Other:

Take a look. This is from the Boston Globe:

But Bush fell well short of meeting his military obligation, a Globe reexamination of the records shows: Twice during his Guard service -- first when he joined in May 1968, and again before he transferred out of his unit in mid-1973 to attend Harvard Business School -- Bush signed documents pledging to meet training commitments or face a punitive call-up to active duty.

He didn't meet the commitments, or face the punishment, the records show. The 1973 document has been overlooked in news media accounts. The 1968 document has received scant notice.

On July 30, 1973, shortly before he moved from Houston to Cambridge, Bush signed a document that declared, ''It is my responsibility to locate and be assigned to another Reserve forces unit or mobilization augmentation position. If I fail to do so, I am subject to involuntary order to active duty for up to 24 months. . . " Under Guard regulations, Bush had 60 days to locate a new unit.

But Bush never signed up with a Boston-area unit. In 1999, Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett told the Washington Post that Bush finished his six-year commitment at a Boston area Air Force Reserve unit after he left Houston. Not so, Bartlett now concedes. ''I must have misspoke," Bartlett, who is now the White House communications director, said in a recent interview.


You were saying?

EdHeath said...

Dayvoe, thanks for the defense, exactly the sort of thing I would have looked for myself. Your link doesn't work, BTW, but this should be the Globe piece you were referencing: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/09/08/bush_fell_short_on_duty_at_guard/

As for possibly, well, I don't want to be someone who makes claims not supported by facts. Bush and/or company have not been investigated, let alone indicted. And of course they have not been convicted by a jury and/or judge(s). So even beyond the presumption of innocence, the government has not stated that a crime might have even occurred.
So "possibly".

Conservative Mountaineer said...

Other Ken...

No, they're not unbelievable.. they're pathetic.

A tried and true tactic of the liberals, oh.. sorry, progessives, is to answer a charge or a discusssion with a non-sequiter that is completely unrelated (whatever, you know what I mean)... trying to chnage the subject.