I'm truly shocked. Some Republicans literally believe Obama is a Muslim

I was just on the phone with a woman I met a year ago at the university we attend. She's 38 years old and has a high (3.7 or 3.8, if I recall correctly) GPA.

She's also an evangelical Christian, and the hundreds of friends she has on her Facebook page are almost all evangelical Christians. She doesn't have a TV signal and doesn't pay a lot of attention to the news, so I'm sure most of her information comes from FB postings, and from conversations she has with other Christians.

On the phone just now we were discussing the presidential race, and she said, "I don't know, there's something about Romney that I really don't like. He seems really untrustworthy, and he creeps me out. But I can't get past that whole Muslim thing with Obama."

I asked if she was serious about the "Muslim thing" -- did she really believe Obama's a Muslim? -- and her answer indicated that she thought it was common knowledge.

Then I asked, "Do you mean he's a 'secret Muslim'? ...that he's really Muslim but pretending to be a Christian, or do you think he actually claims that he, himself, is Muslim?"

The questions apparently confused her. When I didn't get an answer, I asked, "Do you remember Reverend Wright, Obama's Christian pastor, who..." To make a long story short, I covered the whole Wright controversy, but the point I was making to her was that people were having issues over what Obama's Christian pastor had said.

She said she didn't follow the 2008 election closely enough to see any of that. She had never heard of Reverend Wright.

I said, "There are some people who say Obama is secretly Muslim, that he's lying and pretending he's a Christian. Are you saying you think he's actually a professed Muslim?"

She said, "I think it might not be possible to know some of these things."

She's 38, earning a high GPA at a liberal college, but otherwise gets most of her information from Facebook friends who think the way she does. And she can't vote for Obama, even though Romney creeps her out, because of "the whole Muslim thing."

I honestly did not know these people existed. They're living and working among us, connected to the same Internet, and they truly believe we elected a professed (not "secret&quot Muslim president in 2008.

San Francisco couple kill daughter's alleged pimp, cops say (SFGate)

Here's one way Free Republic is spinning the Romney bullying incident

"President Obama was a bully, too!"

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2882611/posts

They're comparing the Romney bullying incident to a passage from Obama's first book:



Compare:

"I ran up to Coretta and gave her a slight shove; she staggered back and looked up at me, but still said nothing. 'Leave me alone!' I shouted again."

to:

"The fellow students told The Post that Romney led his friends in tackling the teenager, pinning him down and snipping his hair with a pair of scissors. The teen cried and screamed for help, according to the classmates, and was out of school for a time, later returning with his shorter hair back to its natural brown color."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/romney-hair-cutting-prank-school-leaders-say-similar-incidents-today-would-lead-to-punishment/2012/05/11/gIQAmvuJIU_story.html

A shove versus an assault. A silent stare versus screams for help. Regret over the offense versus nervous giggling and a fuzzy memory.

"President Obama was a bully, too!"