24%: Obama not born in U.S.; 6%: Hawaii is not a state (are they right?)

Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling shows a keen lack of intellectual rigor in discussing a poll they did ("A deeper look at the birthers", link):

...62% of Americans think Obama was born here, while 24% think he was not and 14% are unsure.

10% of the country thinks that he was born in Indonesia, 7% think he was born in Kenya, and 1% think he was born in the Philippines.

That leaves 20%, which includes at least some people who correctly believe that Obama was born in Hawaii, but who don't consider Hawaii to be part of the United States. You read that right- 6% of poll respondents think that Hawaii is not part of the country and 4% are unsure.

Hawaii has been admitted into the union, however, as with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, some people think that the admission was invalid. A very simple search for is hawaii a state will bring up pages like this and this. From the first:

On November 23, 1993, President Clinton signed United States Public Law 103-150, which not only acknowledged the illegal actions committed by the United States in the overthrow of the legitimate government of Hawaii, but also that the Hawaiian people never surrendered their sovereignty.

For more on that, see (yes, I know): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apology_Resolution Earlier this year, the Supreme Court apparently ruled that open-ended language in 103-150 doesn't mean that Hawaii isn't a state. And, as far as I'm concerned, it's ours now. And, some of those polled might not be basing their choices on those issues. However, no doubt some are. And, this is yet another example of low-wattage Beltway establishment hacks smearing over this issue instead of pointing out things like the above.

Wed, 08/19/2009 - 14:33 · · Importance: 4