61% of Americans oppose construction of the 'Ground Zero Mosque'....24% think Obama is Muslim

[Cali_Democrat]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2011799,00.html

Other poll highlights....

- Only 26% of Americans support construction of the mosque.

- More than 70% concur with the premise that proceeding with the plan would be an insult to the victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center.

- 28% of voters do not believe Muslims should be eligible to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.

- Just 47% of respondents believe Obama is a Christian. 24% declined to respond to the question or said they were unsure, and 5% believe he is neither Christian nor Muslim.

:banghead:

[Cleobulus]

1. Its called misinformation and ignorance, most of those people think its a mosque being built...

AT ground zero, a complete fantasy, but we can thank the media for spouting that bullshit.

[Cali_Democrat]

3. Yep

The media is failing to do its job, what else is new.

[Lilyeye]

18. This is the biggest problem

A lot of people think its being built AT ground zero. I used to hate the term "dumb American." Now I realize that term actually fits with most of the population.

[Fire1]

26. So true. n/t

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. If the poll asked them about the "ground-zero mosque" ...

... then the validity of the poll is zero, since the project is neither a "mosque" nor is it at ground zero.

This is a winnable fight. There is potential in this issue al to de-stupidize a lot of people. What we need is for smart, high profile, well spoken people to spearhead the destupidization.

Obama, Biden ? Let's get to it.

[Imajika]

6. No, in the short term, this fight is over...

It is not winnable. It usually takes a very long time to move public opinion - especially when it is this stacked against you.

This is one of those issues where the President did the right thing (initially) and the right thing is just not very popular. It is a big fat loser of an issue, and it may well have been much wiser to just avoid the subject.

There is no win here for us. Perhaps in the long term as the Republicans are basically aligning themselves against EVERY minority group, but in the short term this is about as big a loser as one could find.

[smalll]

10. You're right, there's no win. But there is, and needs to be, a way to end this --

Obama needs to talk to Bloomberg, have him find a NYC real estate tycoon with a nice, large, ready-for-building site ELSWHERE in the city who would be willing, for the sake of the Democrats, to exchange that site with the Park51/Cordoba Houe site. Then Obama needs to talk one-on-one with the Cordoba House leaders to explain to them how it would be a better thing for everybody to take the exchange and, to use Dean's word, "compromise" on this.

[Empowerer]

20. NO!

This is NOT a compromise!

I am really tired of minorities being told to shut up and go away because their presence offends the sensibility of the majority - and then to see them blamed for not making an effort to reach out to and compromise with the majority.

How is this a compromise? The people opposing the cultural center don't want it in that location, period. Making them move it, regardless how nicely packaged the deal is, is nothing more than a mandate from those who oppose it.

If this is a compromise, the people who oppose the location of the mosque would give up something, which has not been suggested at all in any of these "compromise" discussions. Instead, it's just their way or the highway.

Why not tell those who oppose the cultural center to compromise by letting it go up as planned and then making an effort to learn more about Muslims and the Islamic faith so that they will understand that they have nothing to fear from either?

[JoePhilly]

4. Welcome to ZombieLand

[BootinUp]

5. I'm going to look at the silver lining

Perhaps this will be a good opportunity to re-educate some on Obamas background, as well as ratchet down the fear of muslims. The propaganda from the other side has been fairly effective, Obama dealt with it before, he can do it again. Of course the first priority is getting the jobs bill through. As long as he keeps hammering on that, I don't see the problem.

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. I wish, when they ask if the President is going in the 'wrong' direction,

they would phrase it to identify what direction that is.

While most Republicans would say Obama is going in the wrong direction, so would much of the Democratic left - only for the opposite reason.

Phrase it as "do you the the president is taking the country too far to the left" and you would get a vastly different number than "do you think the president is taking the country in the right direction?"

[emulatorloo]

13. I'm also wondering how "Push-Pollish" the questions were.

I;ve not heard of the firm that did it, and Time did not link to a PDF of the questions.

[Uzybone]

8. Stupid, stupid country

[bigdarryl]

9. IGORANT JACK ASSES no wonder the country is in trouble my question is

even if he was a MUSLIM so what the word MUSLIM has become like the N word

[maxsolomon]

11. i despair for this nation

the future:

[emulatorloo]

12. Wonder where we could find the internals? Time doesn't link to them

I'd like to see how they asked the questions, and did they have any on the issue of freedom of religion.

[Cali_Democrat]

15. I don't think there's any denying that many Americans are just plain ignorant. nt

[Clear Blue Sky]

14. And how many saw Elvis in the past month?

[krabigirl]

16. A majority of Americans agreed with the Iraq war resolution in 2003. they were wrong then..wrong now

[WorseBeforeBetter]

25. I was just going to post that.

May 2003

A Gallup poll made on behalf of CNN and the newspaper USA Today concluded that 79% of Americans thought the Iraq War was justified, with or without conclusive evidence of illegal weapons. 19% thought weapons were needed to justify the war.<10>

...

December 2008

On December, 11-14, An ABC News/Washington Post Poll of 1,003 adults nationwide, found 64% felt the Iraq War was not worth fighting, with 34% saying it was worth fighting, with 2% undecided. The margin of error was 3%.<18>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_opinion_in_the_United_States_on_the_invasion_of_Iraq

The Left: Right about Iraq, and right about this community center. (And to anyone who pounces on the Dean avatar, I disagree with him on this issue.)

[Rosa Luxemburg]

17. Nothing but fools!

What a country!

[Jennicut]

19. This is not that surprising, the United States has a history of bigotry and ignorance.

From slavery to anti-immigration, we have shown our ugly side more then once.

[TheKentuckian]

21. Polls should only give you a picture of sentiment not to set policy

There is no winning by attempting to mirror that sentiment because it will almost always change and then you will be the new wrong or seen as craven flip/floppers.

You win by being steadfast in your principles, flexible in your execution, and a teacher of your position to the heart and the head.

Much of today's common wisdom was yesterday's unpopular fringe.

[davidpdx]

22. The amount of misinformation being pushed around about this mosque is just deafening

Literally....

I have gotten into a huge fight on Facebook over this with someone who posted something nasty. Then one of their friends got all condescending and saying they feel sorry for me because I don't read the bible. Oh dear, someone needs to be slapped up the head!

[pampango]

23. OTOH, 58% oppose the Afghanistan war. It just takes us a few years to figure things out.

;)

[Mass]

24. 9. Do you personally know any Americans who are followers of the Islamic religion? No 62 %

Jeez! Ignorance never seems to disappear. They dont know, but want to judge. Unfortunately, it is the same everywhere.

Frankly, I'd like to know how many people hung up on the interviewer when they saw how bigoted the poll was. Personally, I would have hung up, because this is closer to a push poll than a real poll.