Maybe It's Newsweek That Should Be Selling The Washington Post

By Baxter

How have the mighty fallen. We cats can hardly believe that the newspaper that nailed Richard Nixon now bends over backwards to throw sops to the right.

The Washington Post and ABC News have polled people on President Obama's place of birth. And today the paper has proudly published the results. To wit: 14 percent of Americans are morons.

Aside from the fact that that's hardly useful information — since, as superior beings, we find many more people than that to be morons — we cats object to the poll on two counts.

First, that the question is asked at all is patently ridiculous. Hawaii became a state in 1959; the President was born in Honolulu in 1961. Two years ago he posted his birth certificate online. The Governor of Hawaii attests to its authenticity. Why is The Washington Post polling on this non-issue at all? Do they poll on whether Elvis is still alive?

Second, the phrasing of the question — "On another subject, where was Barack Obama born, as far as you know?" — leads the respondent and plants doubt. "As far as you know"? Gee, folks, if you're going to ask it like that, we have a few suggestions for other questions you could poll on:

"Did George W. Bush dodge the Viet Nam draft, as far as you know?"

"Are Charlie Crist, Lindsey Graham, Michael Steele and that Family Research Council guy really gay, as far as you know?"

"Did Marco Rubio commit fraud with his Republican Party credit card, as far as you know?"

"Was John Ensign bribed by his mistress's husband, as far as you know?"

"Is Levi Johnston the father of Sarah Palin's Down's syndrome baby, as far as you know?"

We'd love to see polling like that. Meanwhile, tomorrow morning we may take our home-delivered Post and put it straight under the litter box. We cats HISS.

(IMAGE: You know this picture. Sigh. Those were the days, weren't they?)