I was watching MSNBC tonight and heard that a new nonpartisan independent poll is coming out tomorrow from
Daily Kos, which sounds very interesting. We'll wait until tomorrow to get all the figures, but tonight on
Countdown, Markos Moulitsas, Kos founder, teased us with a few highlights:
- Only about one-third of Republicans think Obama was born in the U.S. (another third think that perhaps we should debate whether Obama was born in the U.S.--first, why would we debate this topic, and second, what would be the outcome of the debate?)
- One-third of Republicans do not think Obama should be impeached (think about it--does this mean that a majority of Republicans polled think that Obama should be impeached? Do they know anything about civics? Do they realize that there must be grounds for impeachment?)
- About a third think that ACORN stole the 2008 election
A lot of this is driven by FOX news and Rush Limbaugh and their reality bending, alternative media machine, noted Moulitsas.
Historically, people have been influenced by the available media whether it be word-of-mouth gossip, broadsheets, pamplets, radio, newspapers, TV, Internet, etc. Is FOX News with it definite slant merely the latest reincarnation of media's attempt to influence, or are we already in George Orwell's 1984 and do not realize how manipulated we have been by some of the right wing-nut "double-speak"? If FOX is driving these opinions, how concerned should Democrats be? Is the network's popularity a programming passing fancy or is it a new means of controlling thinking?