August 23, 2010

On Fox News Sunday, Juan Williams is asked why so many people believe that President Obama is a Muslim and Williams states the obvious, the right-wing media are the ones pushing this lie.

Behind Obama Muslim myth stands the right wing:

Two recently released polls show that an increasing number of Americans believe the falsehood that President Obama is a Muslim. According to the Pew Research Center, 60 percent of people who believe this false claim cite the media as the source of that information -- and, indeed, the right-wing media have incessantly promoted this lie.

Right wing media relentlessly drive Obama-Muslim falsehood

Right-wing media have relentlessly pushed the myth that Obama is a Muslim. In the past two years, the conservative media has continued to lie about Obama's personal history, dishonestly distorting his faith to claim that he is in fact a Muslim and not a Christian. Those untruths have run the gamut -- from outright claiming that Obama is a Muslim to alleging that he "is a Christian that Christians don't recognize"; from using his family and upbringing in Indonesia to portray him as an "Islamist" to claiming he has an agenda that shows he has a "preference of Islam over Christianity"; and from distorting comments Obama or his administration has made to picking out symbols associated with his administration to perpetuate the lie about his faith. Conservatives have even used the Pew and Time polls today to further rehash these falsehoods.

Go read the whole post. Media Matters has a very long list of examples documented there.

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