'Obama's a Muslim' and Other Revealing Snapshots of American Ignorance

(Aug. 19) -- Much hoopla is accompanying a new poll that found that 18 percent of Americans think President Barack Obama is a Muslim. Meanwhile, an even newer survey, conducted after Obama defended the "ground zero mosque" project, found that the number was even higher: 24 percent.

But the fact that only a quarter of the country believes our Christian president is a Muslim actually should be heartening, seeing as on most other domestic political matters, Americans are profoundly more uninformed.

Let's look at a few other notable snapshots of American confusion and/or ignorance. Several years ago, a poll showed that only 20 percent of Americans knew the country had 100 U.S. senators. Just how many did they think we had? (And there are 435 voting members of the House of Representatives, just FYI.) More recently, only 40 percent of Americans could name all three branches of government.

The polls mentioned in the preceding paragraph were cited in "Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter" by Rick Shenkman. And it turns out that in terms of actual knowledge of facts, the country isn't exactly what you would call a brain trust. Shenkman writes:

Americans cannot even name the leaders of their own government. Sandra Day O'Connor was the first woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court. Fewer than half of Americans could tell you her name during the length of her entire tenure. William Rehnquist was chief justice of the Supreme Court. Just 40 percent of Americans ever knew his name (and only 30 percent could tell you that he was a conservative). Going into the First Gulf War, just 15 percent could identify Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or Dick Cheney, then secretary of defense. In 2007, in the fifth year of the Iraq War, only 21 percent could name the secretary of defense, Robert Gates. Most Americans cannot name their own member of Congress or their senators.

It's not just politics and history that Americans are uninformed about. They have a terrible grasp of geography, too. A 2006 Roper poll conducted for National Geographic found that 60 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 couldn't locate Iraq on a map. Nearly half weren't able to locate Mississippi, about the same number that couldn't find India on a map.

Given such a dire state of intellectual affairs, why should we wrinkle our brows at the fact that so many Americans think Obama is a Muslim? We should probably be relieved they at least know he's president.